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Robert Chozick | all galleries >> Galleries >> Deep Sky Images > Pleiades - M 45
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December 10, 2010

Pleiades - M 45

Backyard - Plano, TX

The Pleiades, or Seven Sisters (Messier object 45), is an open star cluster containing middle-aged hot B-type stars located in the constellation of Taurus. It is among the nearest star clusters to Earth and is the cluster most obvious to the naked eye in the night sky. The cluster is dominated by hot blue and extremely luminous stars that have formed within the last 100 million years. Dust that forms a faint reflection nebulosity around the brightest stars was thought at first to be left over from the formation of the cluster, but is now known to be an unrelated dust cloud in the interstellar medium that the stars are currently passing through. Astronomers estimate that the cluster will survive for about another 250 million years, after which it will disperse due to gravitational interactions with its galactic neighborhood.

Canon EOS Digital Rebel XS
Hap Griffin modified with Astrodon UV/NIR Block filter
TMB 80 ED with Williams .8 Field Flattener
IDAS Light Pollution Reduction Filter
University Optics 11x80 guidescope
Meade DSI guide camera
Celestron CGE mount
ISO 1600 19 exposures @ 5 minutes each

Guided with PHD
Captured and Stacked in Nebulosity
Processed in Photoshop full exif


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