New Horizons

ZeRoY

Little 3X stack of Pluto using the latest New Horizon pics using Registax 6!



Sources

shedweller

Top job! It really brings out the detail eh?!

ZeRoY

shedweller wrote: »

Top job! It really brings out the detail eh?!

It sure did! I wish we had better res pictures but not for a long time, I understand the calibrated images wont be avail for at least 9 months to a year!

Curly Judge

Anyone see anything wrong with this official NASA graphic?

namloc1980

Curly Judge wrote: »

Anyone see anything wrong with this official NASA graphic?

?

shedweller

Do i win a box of usa biscuits?

Maximus Alexander

Curly Judge wrote: »

Anyone see anything wrong with this official NASA graphic?

They accidentally made a graphic for ants?

Captain Chaos

Curly Judge wrote: »

Anyone see anything wrong with this official NASA graphic?

Pluto's orbit should cut just inside Neptune's at that point shown but it doesn't. According to that graphic Pluto never comes closer to the sun than Neptune at any point in it's orbit which is wrong. Unless it does off plane axis that can't be seen at this angle but is possibly there.

Curly Judge

Hint: what is one of the reasons the Pluto probe is travelling so fast?

Captain Chaos

Curly Judge wrote: »

Hint: what is one of the reasons Pluto is travelling so fast?

Because it almost at it's aphelion in it's orbit?

Curly Judge

Captain Chaos wrote: »

Because it almost at it's aphelion in it's orbit?

Sorry....I screwed up on post 160.
Please read the edited version again

Maximus Alexander

Curly Judge wrote: »

Sorry....I screwed up on post 160.
Please read the edited version again

Ah, are you saying that the line should intersect with Jupiter?

I think Jupiter has moved since NH crossed its path.

ps200306

Captain Chaos wrote: »

Pluto's orbit should cut just inside Neptune's at that point shown but it doesn't. According to that graphic Pluto never comes closer to the sun than Neptune at any point in it's orbit which is wrong. Unless it does off plane axis that can't be seen at this angle but is possibly there.

Your last bit is right. Pluto's orbit is highly inclined to the ecliptic, so the angle we are looking at here is misleading. In fact, if you were to view it as a flat plane, and bearing in mind that the planets are orbiting the sun counter-clockwise as viewed from the celestial north pole (which you know this view is from, by looking at the direction that New Horizons orbits the Sun after leaving Earth) you would imagine that Pluto is only now heading for perihelion, whereas it passed it decades ago when it was multiple AU "above" the orbit of Neptune. An interesting factoid is that Pluto approaches Uranus closer than it ever does Neptune (about 17 AU), due to its distance above the ecliptic plane whenever it crosses Neptune's orbit.

Captain Chaos wrote: »

Because it [Pluto is] almost at it's aphelion in it's orbit?

Wouldn't Pluto be moving fastest at perihelion?

Curly Judge wrote: »

Hint: what is one of the reasons the Pluto probe is travelling so fast?

Are you getting at the fact that New Horizons slingshotted around Jupiter, but its trajectory doesn't appear to come close to Jupiter in the graphic? Could that be explained by the fact that the graphic shows a snapshot in time as of now, so the planets have moved from the positions they were at when New Horizons crossed their orbits?

(Doh! Max. Alexander got in seconds before me! :pac: )

shedweller

Did you lot have your coffee intravaenously this morning??!!

irishgeo

Is the earth visible that far out if it turned its camera back towards the sun?

ps200306

A subtler form of the Jupiter conspiracy is that the NH Jupiter flyby was nearly 5.5 years ago, which in turn is nearly half a Jupiter orbit. In the graphic, it doesn't look like Jupiter has moved anything close to half an orbit, but could be just a perspective thing.

Curly Judge

Maximus Alexander wrote: »

Ah, are you saying that the line should intersect with Jupiter?

I think Jupiter has moved since NH crossed its path.

For me the key word here is trajectory
New Horizons crossed the orbit of Jupiter nearly eight years ago.
I'm at a loss to know what the position of Jupiter today adds to our pool of information?

shedweller

87,000 miles to go!

ps200306

ps200306 wrote: »

A subtler form of the Jupiter conspiracy is that the NH Jupiter flyby was nearly 5.5 years ago, which in turn is nearly half a Jupiter orbit. In the graphic, it doesn't look like Jupiter has moved anything close to half an orbit, but could be just a perspective thing.

Curly Judge wrote: »

For me the key word here is trajectory
New Horizons crossed the orbit of Jupiter nearly eight years ago.
I'm at a loss to know what the position of Jupiter today adds to our pool of information?

Clearly I've forgotten how to subtract.
Yep, it was 8.5 years ago, three quarters of a Jupiter orbit, and the orbit is counter clockwise so it looks just about right!
My guess is whatever software produced the graphic puts in the positions of the planets, so it was easier to leave them in than take them out. :pac:

Curly Judge

ps200306 wrote: »

Clearly I've forgotten how to subtract.
Yep, it was 8.5 years ago, three quarters of a Jupiter orbit, and the orbit is counter clockwise so it looks just about right!
My guess is whatever software produced the graphic puts in the positions of the planets, so it was easier to leave them in than take them out. :pac:

Not the end of the world, one way or the other.
Just a little parlour quiz to pass the time while we await the main event.

shedweller

According to the "eyes" program, the camera LORRI is looking at Charon now and it more than fills the viewfinder! 78,000 miles to go now and New Horizons is really moving about now!

Curly Judge

Courtesy of the BBC

shedweller

41,000 miles. LORRI, ALICE and RALPH are scanning Charon.

Ace Attorney

How close is charons orbit to pluto?

Curly Judge

Paradoxically, this might be the least interesting time from an armchair observers point of view as the probe will be so busy absorbing and storing information that earth bound viewers will probably be left atthe back of the queue.
Rightly, if perhaps annoyingly, so!
It will take up to 16 months to get it all transmitted back to earth.

Captain Chaos

No point in looking for new info as nothing will be sent back until midnight. It will take months for all the photos to be sent back.

shedweller

Ace Attorney wrote: »

How close is charons orbit to pluto?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charon_%28moon%29
17,500 km to the barycentre.

shedweller

Big turn towards Nix. 19,900 miles left. 36 mins. Lovin this!

bilston

I'm no expert on these things but this is an astonishing achievement. To be taking detailed photos of a planetary bodies billions of kilometres away just blows the mind.

shedweller

bilston wrote: »

I'm no expert on these things but this is an astonishing achievement. To be taking detailed photos of a planetary bodies billions of kilometres away just blows the mind.

It is amazing what we can do.