M45 Pleiades

Commonly called the Pleiades or Seven Sisters, M45 is an open star cluster. It contains over a thousand stars that are loosely bound by gravity, but it is visually dominated by a handful of its brightest members.

 

The nearly straight, blue-white wisps are streams of large dust particles. As the cloud moves toward Merope, its smaller dust particles are slowed down by the star’s radiation pressure more than the larger particles are. The large dust particles continue on toward the star while the smaller particles are left behind.

 

The Pleiades cluster has been observed since ancient times, so it has no known discoverer. However, Galileo Galilei, the Italian scientist best known for discovering the largest moons of Jupiter and championing a heliocentric model of the solar system, was the first to observe the Pleiades through a telescope. M45 is located an average distance of 445 light-years from Earth in the constellation Taurus.

 

Equipment Used

 

Telescope: William Optics Zenithstar 81 APO

Mount: SkyWatcher EQ6-R Pro

 

Controller: ZWO ASIAIR Plus

Main Camera: ZWO ASI533MC Pro at gain 101, temperature -10C

Filter: ZWO UV/IR Cut filter

Focal reducer: William Optics 0.8x 2.00"

Focuser: ZWO EAF

Guide Camera: ZWO ASI290MM Mini guidecam

Guide Scope: William Optics 50mm

 

Stacked from:

Lights 19 at 300s, gain 101, temp -10C

Darks 30 at 300s, gain 101, temp -10C

Flats 30 at 150ms, gain 101, temp -10C

DarkFlats 30 at 150ms, gain 101 temp -10C

 

Bortle 4 sky.

Stacked in AstroPixelProcessor and adjusted in Photoshop CS4 and Topaz DeNoise AI

 

 

Done