From John Causland:
So, last night (July 10/11, 2012) Mike and I were in the Driveaway under less dark skies than Peach Mountain and I noticed on Sky Safari that Pluto is right on the hairy edge of M25 above Sagitarius. I never even thought to try to see it visually, thinking it was only a photo grab object. But YOU can do it too! Partially because the field is easy to find. This was FIRST for me in any scope and only because of the bias of thinking it was impossible visually. IT’S DOABLE. Just some usual star hopping required. Mike left 10 minutes too early to know that he’d seen it.
The stars around Pluto are all mag 11 and it’s EASY to see that field in the Eyepiece even at low power with any scope and know that Pluto should be there at Mag 14. Again, you can’t miss finding this w/o computer control even, as it’s right on the edge of M25. It’s rising about as high as it gets in the South, so it’s a good time to go for it.
From Mike Radwick:
Here it the proof we saw Pluto: The image on the left is the photo I took this morning (July 12, 2012, about 1am) from John’s driveway. The image on the right is from the Digital Sky Survey (http://archive.eso.org/dss/dss). (Note the left arrow points to a dot of light. There is no dot of light at the same position on the right. Hence the left arrow must be pointing to something that moves or changes such as a planet).
I have to say conditions for photography were excellent.
I hope you enjoy!
Clear Skies,
Mike Radwick