2015-06-26, "Search for sources of hazardous material", 4x4-binned LORRI images: Kerberos evident, Styx subtle (seems to be in close neighborhood to a star, and may overlap with JPG artifacts induced by the star), here as a two-frames gif, without annotation:
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The gif is based on these two image series (cleaned, stacked, stitched), full sets seem to consist of 12 images:

With June 27 images, in addition to Pluto and Charon, I see 2 small moons/artifacts/don't know, near the right edge of the image. Also interesting and very contrasty region straddling 10 - 2 o'clock on Pluto that reminds me of an peninsula or isthmus. I am not saying that it IS one mind you.

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Nix and Hydra are now probably visible in some of the non-binned LORRI images. Here is an extreme contrast stretch of image lor_0297689038_0x630_sci_1.jpg together with a rotated and scaled view from the PDS Rings Node Pluto Viewer.

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The image was obtained on 2015-06-27 05:32:00. The possible detections of Nix and Hydra are consistent with the Pluto Viewer result to within 5 pixels which is a good match (the rotation/scaling I did isn't perfectly accurate). Here Nix is probably visible as JPG compression artifacts and Hydra probably as a small dot. Another image was obtained 15 seconds later. In that image Hydra is outside the field of view but Nix is probably visible as a small dot.

Edit: Just saw FOV's post - the bright dots near the right edge of the image are not moons. Probably just noise.

These are images from June 26 and 27. The first two are single frames, so maybe a bit noisy or jpeggy, and the last is the two-frame view several of us have posted, but north-up. Some of the smaller features are repeated in the second and third and are probably real.

Phil

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Wonderful!

Reprocessed images from 27.6.2015.
Magnification 2.5×.

The latest image from the 27th (a merge of five at 500%), with HYDRA as the ostensible target:

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How much imaging of Charon will we be getting


Those Polar dark spots are interesting.

Using last 2 images available from June 27. You can see that "stripey" appearance on Pluto for this one.

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I did my own processing and see them too, plain as day.. and more to the point they're visible even in the raw images... and even more to the point in every single one of them from that time period. So not only are they not processing artifacts, they're more to the point not transient camera artifacts either. And they stretch across a number of pixels. From the pictures taken earlier in the day, you can even see the start of them rotating into view.

Surely these are the same southern hemisphere blobs visible in the albedo maps from Earth (which appear to change between seasons):

http://www.boulder.swri.edu/~buie/pluto/hrcmap.html

But still really interesting how distinct they are. It'll be interesting to see what comes into focus there as we get closer.

I see a planetwide stripe or channel or fault right across the middle. Almost in a Yin/Yang or tennisball shape

That does not seem to be an artifact. It looks like a planet-wide feature north to south and curves far to the right. Somebody else have a look tell me what they think. Or maybe its paradeolia but I think I can make it out in the last 3 images posted !!


Say it is a real feature, Which im pretty sure it is... What sort of fluid from the poles where it is coming from would cut that sort of channel on this frozen planet, there should be zero tectonics on Pluto. And its too curvy to be a accretion belt.

You see a stripe... I see it too. But please don't give in to the temptation to describe it as a channel. There are a lot of other possibilities, and remember this stripe would be 200 km across or so. It could just be a random collection of spots (like a 'river' in printed text - look at a printed page from a distance and you see winding white lines made up of spaces between words which your eyes and brain join up) - it could be a wind streak like markings on Mars, it could be a range of mountains like the Appennines on the Moon. Right now it's just a line.


Phil

I do confirm what Bjorn noticed. Nix and Hydra are clearly visible on the 27th bin x1 stacked images as shown below. The indication near Kerberos is a ground star.

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Fred

Nix and Hydra from the bin x1 images of the 23rd June :

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Lots of albedo variations. Pluto is really impressing. Charon too.

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Background stars can be identified in the 1x1-binned images in many cases, at least if stacked:
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This sequence of 22 frames is an excerpt of the "OpNav Campaign 4, LORRI 1X1" images:
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I've tried to register the images by background stars (actually by writing and running an according software).

This is great and may turn out to be very useful for figuring out the exact image orientation once the resolution gets too high for both Pluto and Charon to fit within LORRI's field of view (can't wait for that to happen!).

EDIT: Nvm, wrong thread, sorry!

Just a gentle reminder that images taken after June 28 are being discussed in the Pluto System Encounter Thread. I've moved a few posts over to that thread.

It looks like a variable star.