Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Taurus (Tau)  ·  Contains:  Extremely wide field
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Mars meets the Pleiades, Gary Leavitt
Mars meets the Pleiades
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Mars meets the Pleiades

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
Mars meets the Pleiades, Gary Leavitt
Mars meets the Pleiades
Powered byPixInsight

Mars meets the Pleiades

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Description

Was able to image the conjunction of Mars and M45 recently despite their low position in the western sky. At approximately 11pm (MDT ) on March 30th, the two sat near each other but rather low just above the horizon. I was obviously concerned about getting something decent despite all the atmosphere I had to go through. And, as you can see, the Pleiades stars were lacking in sharpness. Maybe I can attribute that to their position as opposed to being more towards zenith. And as such, their typical brilliance and nebulosity was also lacking. Had to image this anyway because conjunctions like this don't occur every day. I must confess, my Nikkor 180 mm f/2.8 is a great lens and brought out more detail that I was expecting. On my part, I was using a Star Adventurer tracker where each exposure was only 8 seconds. 26 light frames were stacked, calibrated and aligned using DSS with final enhancements done in photoshop.

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Mars meets the Pleiades, Gary Leavitt