Pluto Viewer Help

This form enables you to generate a diagram showing the appearance of the Pluto system at a specified time. All bodies are rendered with terminators and shadows as appropriate. Selected background stars can also be included.

In the diagram, Pluto and the moons are modeled as triaxial ellipsoids, and are drawn with latitude and longitude contours at 15 degree intervals. Illuminated regions are indicated with black lines; unilluminated regions and terminators are shown as light gray. Penumbral shadows are not indicated. Optionally, the 0 and 180 degree meridians can be shown with a heavier line.

You can decide which orbits to include in the diagram. They are shown as dashed lines.

The diagram is oriented with J2000 declination increasing upward and with right ascension increasing to the left. The frame has uniformly-spaced tick marks along each axis. The declination axis is labeled in degrees, minutes and seconds; the right ascension axis is labeled in hours, minutes and seconds.

Each diagram includes a caption that summarizes the key parameters used to generate it.

Change History

2.8 (January 28, 2014): Our new tool was released.
2.10 (October 14, 2020): Ephemeris updates.

3.0 (July 5, 2021): Major new features:

the returned web page now lists the sub-observer and sub-solar longitudes and latitudes for each the planet and each moon.
the diagram page identifies the sub-observer longitude and latitude, as well as the phase angle, of the planet or selected moon.
there is now an option to highlight the prime meridian on the planet and moons.
Viewer requests can now be bookmarked.
the new Output option lets you jump directly to a PDF or JPEG diagram, bypassing the web page.
the rotation rates of Pluto and Charon, and the sizes of Pluto's small moons, have been updated based on recent results from the New Horizons team.
ephemerides have been updated.
the form now uses a clean, new style sheet.
bug fix: if selected, the anti-solar direction is now more accurate.

3.1 (August 2, 2022):

the JWST and HST viewpoints have been added.
ephemeris updates.

Observation Time

The observation time (UTC) can be entered in a variety of formats. For example, the following all parse to 0:01:02 UTC on July 4, 1976:

1976-JUL-04 00:01:02.00
July 4, 1976 12:01:02 am
12:01:02 am July 4, 1976
1976-07-04T00:01:02Z (ISO format)
MJD 42963.00071759259
JD 2442963.50071759259

If you want the gory details of how times are interpreted, click here.

Field of View

Enter the field of view of the drawing to be generated and select the appropriate units. Units can be seconds of arc (the default), milliradians, microradians, Pluto radii, kilometers (projected at the distance to Pluto) or the fields of view of certain spacecraft cameras.

Diagram Center

Four different methods of specifying the diagram center are supported. Click on the box to the left of the option you wish to use.

Body: The diagram will be centered on the location of the selected body.

Ring or orbit ansa: The diagram will be centered on the ansa of the selected ring or orbit. Specify the east or west ansa using the second box. Note that east is toward the left in the diagram.

J2000 RA and dec: The diagram will be centered on the specified pair of right ascension and declination coordinates. The first box is for the RA and the second box is for the dec. You may also specify whether the RA is in units of hours or degrees. Enter up to three values in each box, separated by spaces; these values are interpreted as degrees/hours, minutes and seconds, respectively. Any or all values can have fractional parts.

Star name: Enter the name of a star as it appears in the current list. The name must match exactly.

Viewpoint

You may specify the point of view of the diagram. By default, the point of view is the center of the Earth.

Observatory: You may select from any viewpoint on the list.

Earth's center
New Horizons: Valid for times surrounding the New Horizons flyby of on 2015-Jul-14.
JWST: Valid for 2021-Dec-25 to approximately two years after the present day.
HST: Valid for 1990-Apr-25 to approximately two months after the present day.
Named observatories: After each observatory's name, you will see listed its latitude and east longitude in degrees, followed by its altitude in meters. Note that only very rarely will a diagram change significantly based on the particular location of an Earth-based observatory.

Latitude & Longitude: If your desired observatory or location is not on the observatory list, you can enter its latitude, longitude and altitude in the three boxes provided. Latitudes and longitudes can each be specified by up to three values, interpreted as degrees, minutes and seconds. Longitudes can be specified either east or west.

If you wish to have an observatory added to the standard list, or to refine the coordinates of a listed observatory, email the necessary information to pds-admin@seti.org.

Moon Selection

You can decide which moons to include in the diagram. Charon will always be included. Use the boxes to the left of the list to choose the smallest set of moons to include. Note that, whatever your choice, the moons appearing above it in the list will also be shown.

Orbit Selection

You can decide which orbits to include in the diagram. They are shown as dashed lines.

Background Objects

You have several independent options for including background objects in the diagrams. These options make it possible to render diagrams around the times of stellar or spacecraft occultations. Objects are marked by pluses and are labeled by name if the Moon & Star Labels option is activated.

Standard stars: Check the box to include any of a standard list of stars that happen to fall inside the field of view of the diagram. The Neptune Viewer does not access a star catalog; instead, it only plots stars from a finite list. To view the current star list, click here. This list is updated periodically at the request of the users; if you would like to have a star added to the list, email the necessary information to pds-admin@seti.org.

Additional star: In addition to or instead of the standard stars, you can specify one additional star to be included in the diagram. Check the box to the left and enter the star's RA, dec, and name in the three boxes. You may also specify whether the RA is in units of hours or degrees. Enter up to three values in the RA and dec boxes, separated by spaces; the values are interpreted as hours/degrees, minutes and seconds, respectively. Any or all values can have fractional parts.

Other bodies:

Check each box to mark the location of the specified body or spacecraft in the diagram.

Title

Enter a title for the plot in this box. It will appear centered above the diagram.

Moon and Star Labels

Optionally, the diagram will be generated with the name of each moon and star written above and to the right of its center. You may select the size of these labels in points, where a point is 1/72 inches.

Moon Enlargement

The diagram is rendered to scale, which means that some of the smallest moons may be very hard to see. You may enter a minimum plotted size for moons in this box. If a nonzero value is used, the smallest moons will be easier to see. The size is in units of points, equal to 1/72 inches. A value of ~4 may be appropriate.

Blank Disks

If you select this option, all latitude and longitude lines will be suppressed in the diagram. This produces a diagram that is suitable for amateur observers to use as a drawing blank. This option is not available for spacecraft-specific viewers.

Highlight Prime Meridians

If you select this option, then the 0 and 180 degree meridians will be shown with a heavier weight.

Output

By default, when you click on "Generate diagram", you are directed to a web page that lists the details of the request, a small preview of the diagram produced, and options to view or download that diagram as PDF, JPEG, or Postscript. Optionally, you can choose to bypass the web page and go directly to the diagram in one of the three formats.