This is my "deep" image of M40 taken with the TOA. I recently posted a 90-minute version representing first light from my new CDK. But this one is almost four hours of integration time
In general, I really do like to go deeper on these "boring" Messier open clusters. But in this case, as I looked at the data, I didn't see any compelling reason to. There didn't seem to be any significant nebulosity in the field. And the few little galaxies in the field are just too small for me to get much detail from. So I decided that 4 hours was enough to show the two stars that make up the catalogued object.
For decades, it was thought that the two stars were binary companions (although the brighter one does have a white dwarf binary companion not visible in this shot). But that has long since been debunked. The distance between the stars has been measured at more than 1,000 light years.
The main reason for even taking this shot is to check off another Messier object in my long-term quest to someday capture them all. I have only 25 left to go after this one.
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