The Pleiades – January 1st, 2016

The second image for 2016.

Again from Cota 1000, near Sinaia, at a “warmer” temperature of minus 13 degrees Celsius.

The sky was superb this time, compared to the previous night at least, with magnitude +6 stars easily visible, and no fog. Some light pollution was present as always at this location (each year more and more lights are being placed around this area).

The equipment for the following shot: Teleskop Service 65Q APO refractor (D=65mm, F=420mm), Canon 550D, ISO 800, 10 frames acquired, each a 10 minutes exposure. Guiding was accomplished via a 50mm finder scope and ASI 120MM-S camera, controlled via the PHD software. All was placed on the EQ6 mount. The tracking was almost perfect for the entire session, which is very nice since I don’t like to spend too much time setting up the deep-sky setup. This time the first shot was acquired within the first 20 minutes after arriving at the location.

And now the shots, one of a larger resolution showing a more detailed view of the Pleiades star cluster and some of the surrounding reflection nebula, and the second showing more of this nebula due to some “extra” processing. I did try to keep the processing to a “mild-level”, but I don’t think I’ve succeeded.

First image:

Second shot, showing a little better the dust reflecting the starlight:

And just for fun, a comparison between a single unprocessed shot, and the end result. This is what is capable now with good image processing software:

Maybe I’ll get lucky again (with dark skies) and gather a few more frames for this object in order to add more details of the surrounding nebula.