Pluto

Pluto is the ninth panet from the sun, although is does spend some of it's orbit closer to the sun than Neptune. Pluto is usually farther from the Sun than any of the nine planets; however, due to the eccentricity of its orbit, it is closer than Neptune for 20 years out of its 249 year orbit. Pluto crossed Neptune's orbit January 21, 1979, made its closest approach September 5, 1989, and remained within the orbit of Neptune until February 11, 1999. This will not occur again until September 2226.

19th, 20th & 22nd August 2005

From my location in Manchester UK, the planet Pluto does not get very high. It is in the south during the evening in the summer months when the sky is bright. During July the sky never goes totally dark.
On the nights of the 19th, 20th and 22nd of August 2005 I was blessed with particularly transparent and clear skies. This allowed me to, for the first time, image Pluto.
I used a 150mm F6 reflector and a 0.6focal reducer. The effective focal length was 600mm. The imager was an SC3 Vesta 675 modified webcam. Each image is a stack of 14 second exposures, as follows:
19th August: 10 x 14s exposures
(limited by cloud)
20th August: 45 x 14s exposures.
22nd August: 40 x 14s exposures.
The upper image is from the 20th of August with the negative from all three nights inset, pluto's position arrowed.
The lower image is an animation in negative to show the movement of the planet relative to the background stars.