Archives for October 2025

This image combines 3 fields captured with my Seestar S50 showing the position of the asteroid (433) Eros on the evenings of 10/12, 10/13, and 10/14/2025. From lower right to upper left the specific times were 10/12 20h51m-22h54m EDT (1.5 hours), 10/13 20h58m-22h58m EDT (2 hours), and 10/14 20h51m-22h54m EDT (2 hours). Each source field was centered on Eros using the position indicated by Starry Night Pro. (The positions from the Seestar and Sky Safari are often inaccurate.) The images straight from the Seestar (stacks of 10sec subs) were aligned and combined in Photoshop and then cropped.

At the time these images were taken, Eros was about 46 million miles away shining at Mv 9.7 about 5 degrees northwest of Almach in Andromeda.

Every year I like to make a pilgrimage to the frozen outlands of the solar system to grab a set of images of Pluto to pay homage to Clyde Tombaugh who discovered Pluto while working at the Lowell Observatory near Flagstaff, Arizona, in 1930. Over the years I have done this with a variety of telescopes including my little ETX-60. This year I was curious whether it could be one my with my Seestar S50 in part because I’d like to use my Seestars for observing asteroids. As it turned out, the S50 worked quite well! This image combines 4 fields showing the position of Pluto on the evenings of 9/27, 9/28, 9/29 and 9/30/2025 at about 10:00 EDT. Each field was approximately 30m x 10s images taken using the Seestar stargazing mode. If you look closely near the center of this image you can see 4 ‘stars’ evenly spaced in a nearly straight line. That’s Pluto as it moved from left to right over the 4 nights of this series. When these images were taken Pluto was 3.2 billion miles distant in the constellation of Capricornus shining at magnitude 14.5.