Finding Nemo , sorry I meant Pluto!

[abillionnewstars]

What are the best settings to use to spot Pluto among the star field? I'll slew to it using Stellarium. I know it would be just a dot but I have a bunch of kids coming to an outreach and want them to remember the night they found Pluto Minor bodies will be something new to me.

I'll be using a guided EQ mount and a OSC on an 80mm scope at f4 in a Bortle 2 zone. It is set- up for live stacking.

Is Sharpsolve sufficient to identify it? Do I need the better resolution star catalog?

Any tips would be appreciated.

Thanks

[SteveInNZ]

Your best bet is to photograph the region the night before at the start of the night and the end of the night if you can. Or st the same time a couple of nights before.
That will give you the opportunity to identify it yourself and see how far it travels in a night and then predict where it will be the night of your show. It's only a few arc seconds but the movement is quite apparent.
You can use that to demonstrate blink comparison and explain how it was discovered using that method.
I've seen it visually in an 8" SCT, just, so an 80mm is going to be photographically only.
SharpCap will get you there. Find a star close to it, plate solve and sync and then again for the position of Pluto to nail it down.
Good luck.

[admin]

Hi,

definitely worth a practice first if at all possible to get your settings all worked out beforehand. I'd start with 15 to 30s exposure and a good medium gain. Use display stretch to boost the faint stuff. Solve with SharpSolve and recenter, then solve again and turn on the 'Deep Sky Image Annotation', which should show Pluto's position (and hopefully you will see a bright spot there!). If nothing at the highlighted position (or within a few pixels) then try more exposure/gain.

cheers,

Robin