One of my favorite celestial sights, and easily seen as a small cloud-like cluster of stars in the east during autumn or high in the winter night sky. Fun fact: the Subaru (car company) emblem is this cluster of stars. "Subaru" is the Japanese word for Pleiades.
Those aren’t clouds in our atmosphere you are seeing around this star cluster, those are pitch black interstellar clouds of cold gas laced with dust and ash that are illuminated by the nearby stars called reflection nebula. Zoom in for details.
Also known as the "Seven Sisters", M45 is an open star cluster containing middle-aged, hot B-type stars located in the constellation of Taurus. It is among the star clusters nearest Earth and is the cluster most obvious to the naked eye in the night sky, aligning to the east of Orion's famous belt.
This image was taken over the span of several evenings, totaling 21 hours of data acquisition.
OTA: William Optics FLT 132 Fluorostar Refractor with William Optics 68III Field Flattener
Mount: ZWO AM5
Camera: ZWO ASI6200MM Pro
Gain: 100
Cooling Temperature: -10 degrees celsius
Filters:
Chroma R🔴 600s x 67 = 11 hrs
Chroma G🟢 600s x 60 = 10 hrs
Chroma B🔵 600s x 60 = 10 hrs
31 hours total integration
Auto-guiding: ZWO ASI174MM Mini and ZWO OAG-L
Auto-focusing: ZWO EAF
Control: ZWO ASIAIR Pro
Calibrated in Astro Pixel Processor with flats, darks and dark flats.
Processed in Pixinsight and Lightroom.
Imaged from Flagstaff, Arizona in class 2 Bortle skies
https://NAZObservatory.com#astronomy #astrophotography #space #nebula
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