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Dale Conrad | all galleries >> Dale Conrad's Astrophoto Gallery >> Gallery of Star Clusters > HYADES
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2011/01/02 D.M.Conrad

HYADES

Sedro-Woolley, Wa.

This 3 X 4.5 degree image is centered at about RA04:28 DEC+16deg 45min. Celestial North is up and CE is left.
The Hyades star cluster at the nose of Taurus, has been determined to be 151 light years away and some 750 million years old.
This cluster is also know in the astronomy world at Melotte 25 and Collinder 50,
The large orange star at the left is Aldebaran, which is not a member of the Hyades open cluster, and only about 65 light years away.
This picture only shows the brightest part of the cluster. All together there are about 300 or so stars involved, most of them not as luminous as those shown here.
If you look at Aldebaran through binoculars or with the naked eye from a darker site, You will see more of the cluster to the west of Aldebaran.

Hutech Canon 40D,Borg 45ED with Borg 0.85 Reducer 7885
10 X 10min. exposures
Only had 10 dark and and 15 flat frames.
Aligned and stacked with Nebulosity. Final processing with Canon DPP
Televue Pronto guide scope with an Orion Starshoot autoguider using PHD guiding
Older Mountain Instruments MI-250 tangent arm mount. full exif


other sizes: small medium large original auto
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