Pluto-Charon system

A composite of 13x13 arcsec wide images taken with the adaptive optics camera NACO on Yepun, one of the Unit Telescopes of ESO's VLT (Paranal). The images were taken in the K-band (2.2 microns) from about three hours to about one hour before the occultation. All images were centred on Pluto and Charon, the double object visible near the centre, with a separation of about 0.9 arcsec. Because of the system's motion, the occulted star, at the right of Pluto and Charon, appears as a dotted trail, and so does another star in the lower left corner.