Update and Final revision - maybe...
I left the original for anyone who is interested. It is an illustration (IMO) of what you can still accomplish in PixInsight even if you do everything "wrong" and with processes taken out of order that compound rather than improve issues with the base data/image.
The period since I first processed this image set has seen a blizzard of new/improved tools in PixInsight as well as some much needed recommendations from the author of many of those tools (Russ Croman) on a recommended processing order and on what the tools can and cannot do. I can say, from my experience, that Russ's guidance and recommendations made a tremendous difference in the ease and smoothness of the workflow. If you haven't watched his interviews with VisibleDark or Adam Block on YouTube, I recommend that you do.
As you compare the original and this current version, you must know that much the 'noise'/mottling in the background was introduced through the improper use of (actually improper order/application) of the new tools. Which in turn, required more effort to attempt to isolate/mitigate even as those efforts further embedded those induced issues. The differences between the two are stark illustrations of the difference in applying processes in the proper order/precedence can make and how much easier the process becomes.
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UpdateI promise this is my last update. I believe I've reworked this target to death. After some feedback and sleeping on it, I decided to tweak the Lum layer to get more detail and tone down the 'fog' or haze around the primary nebula. I did increase the saturation of the blue but not the extent as of the previous version. One thing I noticed in the previous is that I had 'flattened' the glow around the super bright blue stars of the Nebula almost out of existence, which wasn't really intended. So with this tweaking of the image, I brought that back and in doing so, regained a bit of the fainter dust cloud around the primary Nebula.
I think that the detail of the dust/reflection inside the cloud is pretty spectacular in this version and some bow shock can be seen faintly on a massive zoom in on a couple of the stars.
Until I gather more data next year and deepen the data/more signal this will have to do. Please enjoy and let me know what you think.
YMMV
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The
Pleiades (
/ˈpliː.əˌdiːz, ˈpleɪ-, ˈplaɪ-/), also known as
The Seven Sisters and
Messier 45, is an
open star cluster containing middle-aged, hot
B-type stars in the north-west of the constellation
Taurus, averaging approximately 444 ly in distance from Sol. It is among the
star clusters nearest to Earth, it is the nearest
Messier object to Earth, and is the cluster most obvious to the
naked eye in the
night sky.
The cluster is dominated by
hot blue and luminous stars that have formed within the last 100 million years.
Reflection nebulae around the brightest stars were once thought to be left over material from their formation, but are now considered likely to be an unrelated dust cloud in the
interstellar medium through which the stars are currently passing. Computer simulations have shown that the Pleiades were probably formed from a compact configuration that resembled the
Orion Nebula. Astronomers estimate that the cluster will survive for about another 250 million years, after which it will disperse due to gravitational interactions with its galactic neighborhood.
See this Wikipedia link for even more details and the folk lore around this star cluster.
Pleiades - Wikipedia
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