How can I see Pluto?

Thought that Pluto was too distant for us to see? With some observing trickery, that needn’t be the case!

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Astronomer Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto with his photographs of the night sky taken one week apart. The arrow pinpoints the dwarf planet's location.

Astronomer Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto with his photographs of the night sky taken one week apart. The arrow pinpoints the dwarf planet’s location.

Asked by Gary Attard

If you have a large telescope in the 10-12 inch range then detecting the magnitude +15 light from Pluto is not necessarily the problem, particularly if you have an astronomical camera to hand. What is the problem is figuring out which object in the field of view is Pluto! Currently Pluto lurks in the dense star-fields of the constellation of Sagittarius the Archer, so there are lots of stars around it to confuse it with. Being in Sagittarius means it also doesn’t get very high above the horizon during summer, making observation even more difficult. The best way is to image the region of sky Pluto is in using a CCD or DSLR camera attached to the eyepiece of your telescope over several nights. If you combine all the images together, Pluto will appear as the one star that is moving through the field.

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