1. The discovery of
Pluto in 1930
Clyde
Tombaugh

2. Blink-comparator that Tombaugh
used to compare two images,
and discover Pluto by it’s motion

5. The discovery of Pluto’s moon Charon in 1978
James Christy &
Robert Harrington
U.S. Naval Observatory
Washington, D.C.

6. The discovery of two new moons of Pluto
Weaver, Stern, Mutchler, Steffl, Merline, Buie, Spencer, Young, Young,
2006, Nature, 439

7. Notice the star trails, cosmic rays, chip gap…
15 May 2005, frame 1

8. Notice the star trails, cosmic rays, chip gap…
15 May 2005, frame 2

9. Dithering across the chip gap now…see anything?
15 May 2005, frame 3

10. Dithering across the chip gap now…see anything?
15 May 2005, frame 4

11. Looking for real objects among all the artifacts…
15 May 2005, sum 4 frames

12. Hydra
Nix
Charon
Pluto
Hubble ACS image on 15 May 2005

13. Hydra
Nix
Charon
Pluto
Hubble ACS image on 18 May 2005

14. New moons are roughly 3-4x farther out than Charon, and co-planar with possible 6:4:1 orbital resonances
Hydra (P1)
Charon
Nix (P2)
15 and 18 May 2005, median 8 frames

15. What does a “quadruple planet” look like?
Animations
produced with
Celestia

16. New Horizons launch 19 January 2006 Annette and Patsy Tombaugh
Jim Christy
Jim Christy

17. Dawn New Horizons http://pluto.jhuapl.edu http://www.dawn-mission.org
Pluto
2015
Ceres
2015
Vesta
2011

18. In memory of Clyde W. Tombaugh, the American astronomer who discovered Pluto in 1930, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft carries a small aluminum canister containing some of Tombaugh's cremated remains, donated by his family. These remains will fly past Pluto with New Horizons on July 14, 2015, and then on past Kuiper Belt objects in the succeeding years. The memorial canister, about two inches wide and half-an-inch tall, is attached to the inside, upper deck of the spacecraft. Its inscription reads:
Interned herein are remains of American Clyde W. Tombaugh, discoverer of Pluto and the solar system's "third zone." Adelle and Muron's boy, Patricia's husband, Annette and Alden's father, astronomer, teacher, punster, and friend:
Clyde W. Tombaugh ( )

19. First astronomy
book I ever read