Pleiades

[Bill Richards]

The Pleiades (aka “The Seven Sisters” and M45) is an open star cluster - a group of stars that were all born around the same time from a gigantic cloud of gas and dust. It contains more than 800 middle-aged, hot stars. The cluster is dominated by hot blue stars that formed within the last 100 million years which illuminate the surrounding nebulae. They are extremely luminous and will burn out quickly, with life spans of only a few hundred million years, much shorter than the billions of years our sun will enjoy. Pleiades is relatively close to Earth (410 light years) and is the star cluster most obvious to the naked eye.

This image is an HDR composite of nearly 400 images comprising 4.75 hours of exposure time.

Equipment and Software:
Mount: iOption CEM40 w/iPolar
Telescope: SkyWatcher Esprit 100ED
Auto-Focuser: Pegasus FocusCube2
Imaging Camera: ASI2600MC-Pro
Guide Camera: ASI290MM-Mini on OAG
Imaging Software: NINA
Guiding Software: PHD2
Image Processing Software: PixInsight

Exposure Details:
Bias: 50
Gain: 100
120 x 15s (rejected 19)
180 x 30s (rejected 17)
90 x 60s (rejected 8)
60 x 120s (rejected 13)

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[Ben Egbert]

Another great image, I like the contrast between blue here and the red of your other post.

 

[JimFox]

Awesome work Bill! I sure like all of the detail in the 7 Sisters. You really captured some detail here.

So no filter on this one? Or did you use a UV/Cut filter?

 

[Mike Lewis]

Bill,

Nice HDR work on this one. Can be tricky to get faint details while managing the brightest stars in the frame.

How do you like using NINA? Are you running it on a raspberry Pi or equivalent?

ML

 

[Bill Richards]

Awesome work Bill! I sure like all of the detail in the 7 Sisters. You really captured some detail here.

So no filter on this one? Or did you use a UV/Cut filter?

No external filter on this one since this is a reflection nebula. The ASI2600MC-Pro has a built-in IR/UV cut filter, though.

 

[Bill Richards]

Bill,

Nice HDR work on this one. Can be tricky to get faint details while managing the brightest stars in the frame.

How do you like using NINA? Are you running it on a raspberry Pi or equivalent?

ML

I love NINA - it's a very flexible, powerful, and reliable utility. Additionally, the developers are very supportive when issues arise.