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M45 - The Pleiades, greenbbs

M45 - The Pleiades

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M45 - The Pleiades, greenbbs

M45 - The Pleiades

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Description

M45 - The Pleiades (or the Seven Sisters)

The other night, we had a fabulous evening outside with crisp air, and fairly low humidity....was after a stormy day, and was pretty unexpected. I set up after work (while Jennifer Radi Greenberg​ was baking that cake thing), and shot the Pleiades.

M45 is an open cluster of middle aged stars located in Taurus. The stars in the cluster are very hot, and very bright (which helps attribute to the blue color), which have all formed within the past 100 million years. It is probably the most recognizable open cluster of stars in the night sky. They are also relatively close, being about 400 light years away.

Things you can't see with the naked eye: All the dust. It was once thought that the dust surrounding the stars was part of the area that formed these, but as time has gone on and we understand star movement and formation more, it's thought that the stars are moving through the clouds of dust rather than being formed from them. The blue color is from the reflection of the stars, and this is what is termed a "reflection nebula".

The nine brightest stars of the Pleiades are named for the Seven Sisters of Greek mythology: Sterope, Merope, Electra, Maia, Taygeta, Celaeno, and Alcyone, along with their parents Atlas and Pleione.

Nerdy Details:

Sony A99

Stellarvue SV80ST-25SV f5.9 refractor

ISO 1600

60 x 90 seconds (90 minutes)

Stacked and preprocessed in PixInsight​

Finished in LR and Photoshop

Comments

Revisions

  • M45 - The Pleiades, greenbbs
    Original
  • M45 - The Pleiades, greenbbs
    B
  • M45 - The Pleiades, greenbbs
    C
  • M45 - The Pleiades, greenbbs
    D
  • Final
    M45 - The Pleiades, greenbbs
    E

Histogram

M45 - The Pleiades, greenbbs