Goodbye M45 Pleiades from ES80

[pbenni]

Hi, I am new to this forum

Goodbye winter stars....

This image of M45 is from my second favorite setup using a Explore Scientific 80 refractor and a TV TRF-2008 0.8x reducer (f4.8) as a wide field AP system with a ST-8300C ccd. The backfocus is set at 53mm instead of the recommended 56mm as I found the stars look best but there is always some coma and CA at the image edges at all backfocus distances. However these edge star distortions are not very noticeable for this wide field configuration as the stars are usually small. The mount is a CGEM with autoguiding by the Orion SSAG 50mm guider package.

Image details: Exposure 10 minutes x8. Image binned and slightly cropped to fit. I left the circular ring artifact in the image to show that these reflection artifacts do often occur with this configuration at the edges or corners of the image frame. These are easily removed by PS.

Paul

[astro mick]

Nice image Paul.Amazing amount of Nebulosity around the main stars.Yes i do see the ring.

Mick.

[nightvision]

Very nice.

[Scott]

I love this target and you have certainly done it justice. Nice work

[sologuitarist61]

That is very nice indeed!

[planetdnb]

thats a lovely image you have there!

[Gina]

Superb image

[andyo]

great image showing plenty of the blue stuff