Help with Pleiades

[Mattjohnson1978]

Hi! First time post for me.

I have only very recently got my first telescope (Explorer 150p) and quickly got excited about taking some images of what i could see. I managed to borrow a dslr camera for the weekend and tried some very basic astrophotography, just to get an idea of what to expect. I took a few shots of Pleiades on what was a short exposure as Santa hasn't brought me my eq mount motors yet but was confused as to what I was looking at. Can anyone tell me what the 4 objects I've outlined are? These were taken from the RAW image and I was wondering if they should look like that (if so, that's amazing!) or are they out of focus stars? I've tried using my old mate Google but I think I'm stumped. The weather has been so poor since, that i havent been able to get back out and review it.

Does anyone have a high resolution image of this that could help me out?

Thanks for reading, hope to hear.....something

[Uranium235]

Thats three more of the stars that make up M45, theres a lot more than 7 there

Oh, they are a bit out of focus too so you may need a bahtinov mask to aid focus, and increase the ISO to at least 800 as well.

[barkis]

Not sure which 150 you have. One is f5, and the other f8.

You won't get all of the cluster in the same field of view, only part of it. As Uranium said, the Pleiades is a compact cluster to the naked eye, but many many more stars are contained in there, which only a telescope will reveal.

Astro Photography has a learning curve, and you have made a start, so you now need to persevere on the need for correct focusing, exposure times, and guiding the telescope to prevent the stars trailing. Don't expect too much to begin with, It can be a job requiring lots of patience.

You'll be OK.

Good Luck.

Ron.

[Mattjohnson1978]

Thanks for your reply.

I searched for a maps of Pleiades and all they would mention were the 7 major stars. The ISO was on 100 as I'm still on a non-powered mount and anything higher just lined across the screen. Thought it was a bit too good to be true tho. The left hand image does look quite exotic, especially to the novice such as myself. I have however already convinced a few people at work who are ignorant of this subject that they are distant nebula or galaxies......it impressed them, so no need to shatter the illusion lol.

Once I'm fully operational, M45 will be the first of my challenges. Some images I've seen are amazing and would love to have a try myself!

[Mattjohnson1978]

Thanks Ron. I have a DSLR expert on hand who said he was willing to teach me the workings of the camera. Already had a go with some processing, and yes, lots of patience will be needed lol. Loving what I've seen so far thru the eyepiece of my telescope (f5 not f8) so far and would love to get some good images in time. I'm sure this page will be getting lots of questions from me as I get more into it to try and smooth out the learning curve as much as possible

[Tommy B]

A good book to get would be "Making Every Photon Count" by Steve Richards if you've not already got it. It served as a veritable bible for me in terms of astrophotography. Read it cover to cover a few times and the complexities of this hobby will be so much clearer. That coupled with the immense teaching power of this forum will have you taking soul shaking images before you know it. Good luck in your endeavours.

I still can't believe that im photographing objects beyond comprehension

[Jannis]

Like already mentiond, it's just some of the brighter stars.

I've stretched your pic way beyong it's limits just to show you the stars you've captured. also addig a pic i took just days ago easily showing the same stars pluss a few more.

You've got quite a lot of stars there. You're on to a nice start

I recommend to shoot at highest possible ISO untill you get an EQ mount, and stack as many as you can to reduse the noice and bring out the details. imaging these like you did without EQ tracking mount is veeery hard, but shuold be possible with enough pictures to stack. don't expect to get out too much of the fainter nebulas though, but you should be able to see some of it