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Tombaugh

What's moving above you?

Finds the patch of sky straight above you right now and shows it as SPHEREx recorded it on earlier dates. It is not a live view. Your location stays on this device; only the sky patch, rounded to 0.2 degrees, is used.

Plates

Frame

Comparator

Before: each exposure minus the median, over the image noise. After: the same exposure with each pixel judged against its own measured scatter.

Keys: space play, arrows step, B blink, D difference, S stack, E before or after, P plate or sky, G Gaia. With the plate focused, Enter reads the spectrum at the marked object.

View

Astronomers often view the sky as a negative, as they did when Pluto was found. Faint objects are easier to spot.

Motion

Candidates on this plate

Sky searched by the public

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Spectrum and light curve

Click a point on the plate, or focus the plate and press Enter.

About

Clyde Tombaugh found Pluto in 1930 by flicking between two photographs of the same stars and spotting the one that moved. Tombaugh does the same with images from NASA's SPHEREx space telescope, for the patch of sky above you.

Live lookups: checking