The Pleiades also known as the Seven Sisters and Messier 45, are an open star cluster containing middle-aged, hot B-type stars located in the constellation of Taurus. It is among the star clusters nearest Earth and is the cluster most obvious to the naked eye in the night sky.
The cluster is dominated by hot blue and luminous stars that have formed within the last 100 million years. Reflection nebulae around the brightest stars were once thought to be left over material from the formation of the cluster, but are now considered likely to be an unrelated dust cloud in the interstellar medium through which the stars are currently passing.
Computer simulations have shown that the Pleiades were probably formed from a compact configuration that resembled the Orion Nebula. 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.
Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleiades
Experimenting, collecting experience and learning software for assembling and processing astrophotographic photos, brings results. The material for this photo comes from four different photo sessions, taken at different times during 2019.
Different frames, different exposure times, different sensitivity. One session was without Flat calibration frames, which additionally made it difficult to put everything together. However, APP is my friend and after a few test I’ve taken, I understood and learned how to compose such sessions. After joining all the sessions together, I saw that basically I did a little mosaic. The source material was not of good quality as shown in the photo. This maximum I could gain from it. I have to plan
a new pleiades photo session with the new, target equipment I have now.
- Composition: Astro Pixel Processor,
- Processing: RT + GIMP + plug-ins (Linux),
- Total exposure time minus defective lights: 5h56 min. ISO 1600 + 1000
- Calibration frames (one missing session): Flat, DarkFlat, Bias
