I thought that was last night .. four long "fail safe" comm sessions. Plus, these are brief earth pointing periods, enough for some engineering t/m perhaps?

Again, the New Horizons image database has been fixed. Now you can sort correctly the images by distance. The address is http://nchazarra.duckdns.org/db/
There are around 20 fields duplicated. I will be fixing that later today. Now the script checks if there is new images every hour.

Same thing happened to me at Apollo 11 spashdown. At one stage dad told me to go to bed...never forget...

I got up at 4 am to enjoy the encounter. It's a once in a life time chance.

Broadcasting the signal for the radio occultation experiment

Screen sharing between Eyes/TheFlyby/UNMSF and tweeter on the Ipad... I'm ready for the ride...

Fantastic images guys,
this is my precise 6 km/pixel collage (5.95 exactly) For compare Pluto-Charon and other bodies of the Solar System.
I'm enthusiastic.

I think Charlie Bolden is live on NASA TV as of a couple minutes ago, not sure.

http://www.ustream.tv/NASAHDTV

Charles Bolden: "Pluto is rich in reds". Maybe he has already seen a certain color picture?

My take on LORRI pictures of 11 July, 22h23 UTC:

It's actually been known for decades Pluto was reddish. Also a color picture has already been released.

1 hour to CA.

If you were on New Horizons right now, Pluto would appear 7 times the size of a Full Moon, and you'd be frozen and dead in airless space. Thank you, New Horizons, for making the trip for us!

Youtube link for NASA TV incase the ustream link I posted a few posts up cuts out. I've found it's wise to have 2 or 3 open(and mute all but 1), at least for rocket launches.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OX9I1KyNa8M

And then the actual NASA TV link, for a third source - I've found this is usually the first one to cut out:
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/

Crossing the orbit of Earth's geostationary satellites...well, you know what I mean.

Teaser of the main release
redits: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI
Click to view attachment

This is it! July 13th @ 4 pm EDT

Click to view attachment

^^ ninja'd.

There be craters.


But ehh, isn't that roughly as big as Pluto should appear in that image (EDIT: yes it is)? How is it a teaser?

Link, by the way.

Nice

It looks like the heart is a bleeding heart!

Well, NASA posted that on Instagram as a 'sneak peek' ahead of posting it on their official site so Teaser is a suitable title, I imagine.

NASA TV program placard now up: "New Horizons Mission Celebration Arrival At Pluto" (their italics).

How many years we've waited to see that.

Looks like a filled depression...

That's the Kodak moment right there, the image that will be on all the front pages tomorrow, and what a fantastic shot it is, great angle with the white area surrounded by all sorts of darker hues and shapes. Congratulations to NASA, the NH team, the US and all of us here on planet Earth: we finally had a look at all of our neighbourhood!

Charon about to be eclipsed by Pluto from NH's viewpoint.

It will be good to see the first high resolution MVIC picture.

The bright area looks remarkably smooth at this resolution but it apparently has one crater close to its center. And one thing is obvious now: Pluto is more cratered than Triton - but the craters are nevertheless relatively few.

Pluto Wide

It looks like the high res imagery will reach the feature that I've marked here as "Chasm?" but will we also get the crater looking feature in high res or is it outside our range?

-kap

Moment of closest approach: NOW!

Closest approach, looking at Charon!

Bill Nye in the front row cheering!

End of NASA TV C/A coverage. Next up: Press briefing w/image release.

Welcome to Pluto!

Looks like the Charon-shine images are being taken right now.

-kap

Edit: looks like they timed it so Pluto is about the width of Ralph's field of view for this pass.

Anyone else wish that we could have heard what the speakers were saying instead of that NASA media guy telling how exciting it was?

Great view!
At first glance, the bright heart reminds me of a frozen sea because it seems uniform and relatively smooth.

Momentanean modified compare, 6 Km/pixels
Daniele

I like the location of that prominent "bullesye" crater that looks to be near the transition of darkest to a less dark region.

ps I love the "heart" thing, you can't buy that kind of pr, Alan must be over the moon, er I mean Pluto!

Swear jar full again...

It looks a bit like there is Triton-esque terrain to the left. Did we me 'miss out' on the parts of Pluto that look the most like Triton?

Agreed, some of the most sublime dialogue is via the Flight Director and team, be it UMSF, Apollo or Shuttle.
Still, fascinating stuff, so much to take in at one gulp. To hark back to when I was a child (1960`s), no one could have predicted what
we are seeing right now.
Go New Horizons - Go.

Presser on now, reveal of the 'preview' image!

do not see many similarities with Triton, it seems different from any others body of the solar system..
the " white heart " resemble an antique lake basin dissolved

I think the only thing that will ever look like Triton IS Triton lol

EOTSS says "Target Earth", so I imagine that's the radio science experiment looking at the atmosphere?

Ok, tell me I'm crazy but does it look like the large chasm right above/left of the heart opens into a huge alluvial fan? I've marked it on the image here:

Click to view attachment

-kap

History in the making, and we are greeted with a heart!

Hope that they'll talk a bit about the Pluto & Charon radio occultation experiments. Those should be received in just a few hours, well in advance of the image playbacks.

kap, I'm not seeing your alluvial fan. Q&A starting re image details.

The next step is the stars.

Emily just asked about color imagery and if any atmospheric phenomena have been captured.