Wednesday July 29th the waxing gibbous Moon will be within a few degrees from the Dwarf Planet Pluto.
Where is Pluto and is Pluto visible to the naked eye? Pluto currently is above the teapot-shaped asterism for Sagittarius the Archer. It is located near a 3rd magnitude star, Xi2 Sagittarii, however Pluto has an apparent magnitude of 14.0 making it too dim to be seen in other than a large telescope or with a sequence of pictures of the same part of sky over a period of several days or weeks. From that sequence of pictures the motion of Pluto against the stars in the background becomes noticeable.
Click here to learn more about the New Horizons mission and take part in the mission with some of the interactives created by NASA.
Click here to go to the Qué tal in the Current Skies web site for more observing information for this month.
Filed under: Astronomy, Astrophotography, constellations, Dwarf Planets, Moon, Observing, Planets Tagged: 7x50 binoculars, apparent magnitude, astronomy, astrophotography, conjunction, dwarf planets, moon, observing, orbit around the sun, Planet Pluto, planets, pluto, waxing gibbous moon, Xi2 Sagittarii
