Dusty and his 7 Sisters "Pleiades M45" (Terry Hancock)

Dusty and his 7 Sisters "Pleiades M45"

Captured using the QHY367C Full Frame CMOS camera and Takahashi 130FSQ (System 1) November subscription data from GrandMesaObservatory.com in Purdy Mesa, Western Colorado. In tradition with my style I decided to collect 5 minute exposures for this target in an effort to go as deep as possible and capture the very faint nebulosity and dust surrounding M45, many distant and faint galaxies of the PGC catalogue and more are also visible but better viewed in the annotated view of this image. View on YouTube youtu.be/ZxjoBmX9Op0

Total Integration time 5.9 hours

Image capture details

Dates: November 6th 2018

Color 355 min, 71 x 300 sec

Camera: QHY367C

Offset 76, Gain 2850 Calibrated with flat, Dark & Bias

Optics: System 1, Holloway Takahashi FSQ130 APO Refractor grandmesaobservatory.com/equipment/

Filters by Chroma (Narrowband are 5nm)

Image Acquisition software Maxim DL5

Pre Processed in Pixinsight

Post Processed in Photoshop

The setup I used is System 1 and one of 3 telescopes currently available through Grand Mesa Observatory’s Subscription services grandmesaobservatory.com/equipment/

An earlier images of M45 here: www.flickr.com/photos/terryhancock/32816913754/in/datepos...

Among the closest star clusters is M45, colloquially known as the "Seven Sisters". Due to its close proximity (a mere 440 light-years), and population of extremely hot and luminous stars, it can be easily seen with the naked eye near the constellation of Taurus. The number of visible stars in this open cluster can quickly tell an astronomer how dark a location is on a night of observation. Up to fourteen of the more than one thousand stars in M45 can be seen with the unaided eye.

The bright blue clouds surrounding the stars forms a reflection nebula known as the Maia Nebula. The enormous cloud of dust reflects the light from the hot young stars and was once assumed to be the remnants of the young stars' births, but is now known to be the serendipitous interaction of this unrelated dusty region being illuminated by the open cluster of stars passing through its interstellar neighborhood.

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