Many of us thought it was nearly impossible to catch Charon (Pluto's moon) from a backyard telescope, but Antonello Medugno did it! There are two handicaps to get such a picture. First of all, faint brightness of both objects, and secondly the small apparent distance between them, just 0.7 arcseconds.

Recently Hubble telescope discovered that dwarf planet Pluto also has two additional moons: Nix and Hydra. These are much fainter than Charon, so they are unobservable in this picture.

by Antonello Medugno on 2009-08-25 17:52:40 [Original Size] - [Next Image] - [Author's gallery]