>Pleiades // M45 // Seven Sisters

>What's to say about this target that hasn't already been said? Anyway, what's exciting is this is my first 'completed' deep sky image! After being unable to capture comet Leonard, due to cloud cover, this experience is relieving to me as it turned out better than expected!

>Using information here I decided a higher ISO might bring out more luminosity without doing multiple nights with integration time, in regards to the equipment on hand. The iOptron with the Redcat 51 seems like it can go 60" max without trailing stars anyway. Decided on a 2000 ISO setting then did test exposure times to make sure the brightest stars themselves stayed sharp. 34" seemed to be the sweet spot and while a single frame didn't look too promising, we were in for about 7 hours of capturing before clouds would set in at 3:00am. Still, first hour or so was useless because for reasons unknown the polar alignment was way off. After correcting and cloud cover setting in a few hours after midnight, I threw out all frames before 10pm. Then threw out all frames DSS rated as under a score of 1800 and anything with less than a 200 star count.

>First edit with great effort I've ever done, about 6 hours of time editing. I threw out the first couple attempts and started again, getting a feeling for doing three stretchs before a curves adjustment, then another stretch. Moving on to a slight saturation increase, color toning, and color stretchs with color curves to try and keep star color somewhat accurate. Going back and readjusting until everything looked right. Starnet++ for a final nebula only stretch, to avoid blowing out the brightest stars; and this is the result. Might have been able to stretch the starless image just a little more but I liked it where it was. Might try and stretch it just a bit more later but I think it's about as stretched as it could be. Maybe after more data acquisition as well, another night.