M 45, the Pleiades,
the Seven Sisters - Orion 6-inch Imaging Newtonian - 50% size
click the image for a 100% pixel view
or HERE for the index
Note to Macintosh users:
this image is adjusted for a display gamma of 2.2 to conform to
more viewers. Please adjust for this (or it will be washed out!)
The Pleiades cluster might
be the best known and often mis-named cluster in the northern
skies... It is not only beautiful, but full of
neat little things when seen "under the glass". There
several tiny background galaxies in and around the clouds.
The easiest to spot is UGC 2838, a magnitude 16 edge on spiral
galaxy near the right edge of the image at the bottom of the "clear"
spot.
In the 100% view, you can begin to see a little dust lane detail.
Browsing at 100% one cn find several more faint nameless (to me)
fuzzies.
All of the nebulosity in
this region (and it goes way beyond this image) are reflections
of the blue stars on interstellar dust, even the pink
part of Merope, in the lower portion of the frame, which was thought
to be H alpha when I was in school...
One of the nicest variations to the angel hair reflection nebula
is the mottled cloud almost center frame... a turbulent area no
doubt.
The dust is not associated directly with the cluster and is actually
two separate clouds on the edge of the Taurus cloud..
I had a visitor in this
image too, minor planet 6768 Mathais-Braun roughly on the opposite
side of the frame about 22 minutes south of 27 Taurus
the left most of the sisters, easier to see in the 50% or 100%
frame.. Likewise, about magnitude 16.
Twenty five 10-minute sub
exposures at iso 1600, captured with Nebulosity 2.1.11 and a Hap
modified Canon 350d on an
Orion 6-inch f/5, imaging Newtonian riding on the LX200 12 inch.
A prototype coma corrector was used. Calibration in Nebulosity
included dark, flat, and warm pixel conversion, base color balance
in Nebulosity with some DDP. Carboni's actions in Photoshop
to clean up vertical bands and enhance star color. Noise ninja
with layer masking to smooth the background, Photoshop for final
contrast and jpeg. Guided with a DSI pro and PHD on the 12 inch
at f6.3
Julian, California - 25/26 October 2009
sky conditions fair to poor,
visual mag of 5, near quarter moon for first third, gusty wind
through entire session, star diameter at guider often greater
than 10 seconds.