vkastronomy.com - Astrophotography Weblog
M45 - The Pleiades
22:08 4/10/2005 UTC
< Previous Next >I couldn't resist taking image of this beautiful cluster. I had already taken long set of M33 and Mars and didn't have energy to expose this longer. But I have to start somewhere, so I took twelve exposures of this with my little refractor. There's lots of chromatic aberration visible, but I was surprised how little there actually is it. My scope isn't an APO, but definitely better than standard achromat. Reflection nebula wasn't visible in raw frames due to excess orange light pollution, but after subtracting the background sky it came distinctly visible! I am going to go to some dark location to retake this properly. This was tracked without guiding and only two of the twelve frames had visible tracking errors thanks to PEC.
NGC/IC Object List:
NGC1432 gaseous nebula RA:03h45m49.5 Dec:+24°22m'06" BMag: , LBN 772 Maia Nebula
NGC1435 gaseous nebula RA:03h46m10.0 Dec:+23°45m'24" BMag: , CED 19I Merope Nebula
[High Resolution : 800x600 158kB]
Camera: Canon EOS 350D (Rebel XT) | Telescope: William Optics Zenithstar 66mm f6 petzval refractor | Mount: Orion Skyview Pro, Boxdoerfer PowerFlex MTS-3SLP drive controller | Filters: - | Guiding: - | Exposure: 10x120s(10m) f6 ISO400, 5 darks, no flats | Software: IRIS, GIMP | Location: 60°31'N 26°52'E (Koivula/Kotka,FI) | Target altitude in the beginning of the exposure 43°
Average Rating 5.00 (1 total votes)
Added: 17:44 6/10/2005 UTC
![[High Resolution : 800x600 158kB]](images/m45-2005.10.04-22h08m-high.jpg){kind=link}