Finding the Dwarf Planet (Plutoid) Pluto

Webmaster  © Paul L Money 2011

 

 

 

Despite its faintness, Pluto is still the ‘brightest’ of the distant icy worlds beyond Neptune and for those with Reflecting  telescopes of 8” or 10” or Refractors of 4” or greater then  you can go hunting this distant little world either visually or with digital imaging. The wide field view at right shows a constellation inset to initially guide you to the right area. This has a yellow square and circle which shows Pluto’s general position. The dwarf planet  lies in Sagittarius. Pluto’s path  for the year is marked and is also shown below in the high resolution chart.

  Pluto lies to the left (East) of the star cloud M24 and this whole region has a lot of faint stars that can lead to difficulties in identifying the dwarf planet. At opposition Pluto is magnitude 14.0 and the stars on the lower chart are down to magnitude 16 so hopefully Pluto should be locatable.  Watch for its movement against the background stars - generally the one that moves over a few days is likely to be the dwarf planet. It begins the year close to the 5.8 mag star Y Sgr but cannot be seen as it was in conjunction with the Sun only five days earlier. By late February it may be possible to start to look for this distant world in the early morning sky. It reaches its first stationary point of the year on April 8th when it lies near the open cluster Messier 25. Opposition, when the planet is visible all night, is on June 28th whilst its last stationary point for 2011 occurs on September 16th. Pluto reaches Conjunction with the Sun on December 29th so for about the last couple of months of the year it will not be visible. Good luck in exploring this distant and faint member of our Solar System!