M45, the Pleiades, is perhaps the most recognizable open cluster in the night sky. The "seven sisters", located in the constellation Taurus, are actually made up of over 1,000 stars, but hot blue stars dominate the cluster with up to 14 being naked-eye-viewable. Located about 444 light-years away, the cluster is very young, having formed less than 100 million years ago. The nebulosity around the cluster was originally thought to be a remnant of the cluster's formation but has been confirmed to be unrelated interstellar dust. Mentioned in both the Bible and Koran, Galileo's first observations in 1610 detected 36 of the cluster's stars.
Among the nebulosity in the image is
NGC1435, a reflection nebula in the top left-center around 4th magnitude Merope. The diffuse nebula was discovered by Wilhelm Tempel on October 19, 1859.
Acquisition:
Imaged on 12/18/16, 12/19/16, 12/27/16 & 12/29/16 from Lake St Louis, MO
Integration: 8 hours (LRGB)
Luminance: 24x600s and 40x60s @ 1x1 (280')
R/G/B: 16/16/16 x 300s @ 2x2 (80'/80'/80')
Equipment:
Scope: William Optics GTF 81 5 element refractor (535mm focal length)
Upgraded with Moonlite CF focuser with motor
Imager: QHY9Ms with Olivon OAG and QHYCFW2-s filter wheel
Guidecam: ASI120MM
Filters: Baader LRGB
Mount: Orion Atlas EQ-G
Processing and Software
Guiding with PHD2
Acquisition with Sequence Generator Pro
Integration and processing with PixInsight 1.8
M45 - Pleiades:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/mpusatera/31941541361/sizes/lAnnotated image:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/mpusatera/31218262054/sizes/lAstrobin:
http://astrob.in/278588/0/
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