I Saw PLUTO From the CITY

My telescope and astrophotography camera setup allowed me to capture Pluto from the light-polluted city skies of Chicago.
00:00 Off the Beaten Path
00:51 (Dwarf) Planets are Small!
02:09 Gear Overview
03:47 How Will I Know?
05:08 Setup Montage
05:56 Look at the Data
08:43 Pluto Confirmed!
09:10 Final Thoughts
Artist conception of New Horizons Spacecraft:
Credits: Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
My Equipment:
Telescope: Celestron RASA 8
Imaging Camera: ZWO ASI1600MM Pro
Mount: iOptron CEM40
Filters: 2" Baader RGB and f/2 3.5/4nm Narrowband SHO
Guide Camera: ZWO ASI290MM Mini
Guide Scope: Orion 60mm Guide Scope with Helical Focuser
ZWO ASIAir Plus
ZWO EAF (Electronic Automatic Focuser)
Twitter: / nickjlake
Insta: / nickjlake
Astrobin: www.astrobin.com/users/bortle9/
Video shot on Sony A7C
Rode Wireless Go microphone system
Photographs of the universe, with galaxies, stars, nebulae, supernovas, comets, planets, Moon, Sun. Inspiring wonder about the night sky, even from the light pollution of Chicago.

[@ChucksAstrophotography]

Congrats Nick, you got it!

[@WindyCityAstrophotography]

Thanks Chuck! If only video editing were as easy as capturing Pluto this would have been out sooner 🤣

[@steveburkland5622]

This is a great video, Nick! Very cool that you did a callback to ole' Clyde's technique!

[@mhamen2]

Nice Catch! A PI tip: match the field of view of your two images, place one on top of the other then hold CTRL and press page down, PI will blink between the last two selected images.

[@WindyCityAstrophotography]

Woah, great tip! Thanks Mike!

[@Loopy01]

Very cool! I can't wait to try this out on my own too!

[@WindyCityAstrophotography]

It is a fun side project 😎 Catch it soon though

[@ronlundgren4391]

Outstanding!👏

[@WindyCityAstrophotography]

Thanks Ron!

[@JonnyBravo0311]

Huh... that image of Pluto from Hubble looks like some of the images I've taken... of much larger objects :P
Very fun thing to do, Nick! I've been on a bit of a planetary kick lately... quite different setup than my DSO rig. Tiny sensor, extremely short exposures, high gain, Barlow lenses... oh, and the contortions I go through to look through the finder scope to center the planet on my camera's sensor... LOL

[@WindyCityAstrophotography]

Haha yes planetary is whole different beast! I have limited experience but this is definitely my best-ever image of Pluto 😎

[@enriqueboeneker]

The H alfa thing… very clever, very, very clever! Well done!

[@WindyCityAstrophotography]

Thanks so much, Enrique!

[@scottrk4930]

I am most impressed with this ! Good job you ! I am going to have to try that ...someday . I don't have PI so I'll have to look for another source to do Blink comparisons . Cheers/SRK

[@WindyCityAstrophotography]

Thanks, Scott! PI makes it easy but yeah plenty of other way to do it 😎

[@michaelanderson6764]

Cool!

[@feraxks]

Nice job!

[@WindyCityAstrophotography]

Thank you! Cheers!

[@localshowershitter1264]

For a setup worth more than 2k…holy shit this is beautiful

[@ARMadillo18]

Awesome project

[@WindyCityAstrophotography]

Thank you! Cheers!

[@tiny_ackerman]

Love you bro 🌆 i am an astrophotographer too but a beginner. And we greet each other With CLEAR SKIES 🌌 cloud and light pollution is really a pain here

[@WindyCityAstrophotography]

I hear you on both, though this time of year is pretty good around here for clear skies.

[@deep_space_dave]

@@WindyCityAstrophotography Hey at least the nights are getting longer and more integration beats Chi-Town's Bortle 9+ man made daylight! Also I learned to take hundreds of shorter exposures with my HyperStar!

[@deep_space_dave]

Cool video! When did you image this? The seeing hasn't been that great over us (I'm in Homewood) :-(. Either way I like your results 🙂 CS!

[@WindyCityAstrophotography]

Thanks! It was end of August, 30th and 31st I think. Yes the seeing has been rough for sure

[@laurele861]

Dwarf planets are planets too. They are a subclass of planets, just like terrestrials, gas giants, and ice giants.

[@mattestabrook]

Another fun video, Nick! I'll give this a spin myself the next time Pluto is above my tree line. Question: Did you try using the "annotate" feature in the ASI Air to confirm that you had Pluto in your FOV? Not as fun as "blinking" but useful to make sure you're imaging the right patch of sky--and also a fun way to spend part of an evening on EAA.

[@WindyCityAstrophotography]

Thanks, Matt! Annotate would have been a great idea; I did the hard work and confirmed the starfield by comparison. Next time!

[@mattestabrook]

@@WindyCityAstrophotography 🤣🤣🤣

[@Zegery]

I wonder if James Webb could do Pluto

[@3dfxvoodoocards6]

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