Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Taurus (Tau)  ·  Contains:  11 Tau  ·  12.15  ·  16 Tau  ·  17 Tau  ·  18 Tau  ·  19 Tau)  ·  19 q Tau  ·  20 Tau  ·  21 Tau  ·  22 Tau  ·  23 Tau  ·  24 Tau  ·  25 Tau)  ·  26 Tau  ·  27 Tau  ·  28 Tau  ·  33 Tau  ·  7 Tau  ·  70 Panopaea  ·  9 Tau  ·  Atlas  ·  Barnard's Merope Nebula  ·  Celaeno  ·  Electra  ·  HD22318  ·  HD22490  ·  HD22627  ·  HD22680  ·  HD22886  ·  HD22992  ·  And 208 more.
Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
M45, The Pleiades, with dust and faint HII area, Robin Livermore
Powered byPixInsight

M45, The Pleiades, with dust and faint HII area

Revision title: semi HDR version

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
M45, The Pleiades, with dust and faint HII area, Robin Livermore
Powered byPixInsight

M45, The Pleiades, with dust and faint HII area

Revision title: semi HDR version

Equipment

Loading...

Acquisition details

Loading...

Description

I've seen one or two images that have pulled out some faint HII areas around M45, so I thought I'd have a go. This three panel mosaic was planned back in November, but it's been an awful winter here in the UK, with seemingly endless cloud and rain (which still continues). Before Christmas I gave up on any chance of getting the Ha with my equipment, and booked some time in Spain with Roboscopes on their Tak 130 Epsilon, which has a similar FOV and alignment to my set up. This seemed to encourage poor weather in Extremedura, and in the end I had to call a halt on the Ha gathering on my final panel a few days ago as M45 was fast disappearing below the Horizon in astro-darkness. So excuses first - I'd have liked more data in both RGB and Ha, but, well, beggars can't be choosers.

The HII areas are so faint that bringing them out was very tricky, and I hope that what I've got bears some relationship to reality. Anyway, having spent all that time and money, I had to get something in there! This is the first time I've combined data from two separate setups, but that all seemed to go smoothly. 

As for M45, I played around with HDR and masking to try and contain its blousiness...   The best of my HDR versions certainly accentuates some of the detail in there, but just looks too flat to my eye. In the end, my solution was to take an average of the two!  Apart from that, the wide field of view was aiming to pick up all the surrounding dusty areas as well as the Ha. I've tried to bring these out, but also tried to keep the end result reasonably subtle.

It took nearly 5 months, but I sort of got there in the end!

Comments

Revisions

    M45, The Pleiades, with dust and faint HII area, Robin Livermore
    Original
    M45, The Pleiades, with dust and faint HII area, Robin Livermore
    B
  • Final
    M45, The Pleiades, with dust and faint HII area, Robin Livermore
    C

B

Title: HDR version

Uploaded: ...

C

Title: semi HDR version

Uploaded: ...

Sky plot

Sky plot

Histogram

M45, The Pleiades, with dust and faint HII area, Robin Livermore

In these public groups

Celestron RASA
ZWO ASI2400MC Users