First go at M45 - The Pleiades

[PhotoGav]

Here is my first attempt at The Pleiades:

33 x 180s Subs, 39 x 180s Darks, ISO800. Stacked in Nebulosity3, processed in PS CS3.

This was acquired a couple of nights ago once the moon had set, so a right old middle of the night in the freezing cold job! It's great being up at that hour, with owls screeching and shooting stars whizzing down every now and again. I had hoped to use more subs, but the first ten or so were pretty much drowned by moonlight and the final four frames were ruined by the branches of a tree - though that did produce quite nice diffraction spikes!

Your comments and suggestions are much appreciated and anticipated as ever.

[SimonS]

Beautiful Picture!

[Alien 13]

A very nice image looks so natural.

[Sandancer10]

Very nice, I like the colours.

[Astrosurf]

That is a lovely image.

Alexxx

[DannyB]

Wow that's a lovely one ! Realy great shot.

[wxsatuser]

Nice M45. :icon_salut:

[Gohan75]

Great shot. Saving for an ED80 atm n this shows what the scope is capable of. Well done.

[Twisted Lip]

Agree with all of the above it's a great shot!

[LouisJB]

really nice that nebulosity is something I've never seen observing visually, really comes out in images. Nice work

[PhotoGav]

Thank you all for your kind words.

I'm looking forward to the next imaging session... Looks like Tuesday night could be good. Need to check what the moon will be doing and decide on the target. Also need to carry out a little tree surgery....!

Clear skies.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[swag72]

You've got some good nebulosity showing through there - A great start. There is a vignette around the image (darker corners, brighter central area) that could easily be corrected with flats. They will make a big difference to your data.

You're very brave imaging in moonlight! I rarely bother these days!

[PhotoGav]

Hi Sara, thank you for your feedback, that's very interesting.

Are you sure that is vignetting or is it over enthusiastic processing of what I thought was nebulosity?! I haven't tried shooting flats yet as I didn't think the images were suffering from vignetting, but maybe it is time I climb that slope and suss out flats...

As for imaging in moonlight - I'm not that brave (or is it stupid!), I don't bother either... This M45 was shot around 3 in the morning once the moon had set and having looked at Tuesday in better detail, I will be keeping the telescope in the warm, unfortunately!

[Alveprinsen]

Thats a kickass picture...

I aimed my scope at Pleiades myself a few weeks ago, but the clouds totally threw off my Chi.... So, I ended up with like 1h 5 minutes exposure.. Which was not enough AT ALL ...

Anyhow, I'll get around to it eventually...

[Joves]

BeautIful!!

[PhotoGav]

Thank you Alveprinsen & Joves.

I look forward to the clouds leaving us alone, the moon hiding and us all having the chance to play at imaging again. I'll be aiming for some perfect unguided tracking, hours of M45 and trying to make some useful flats!

It's becoming very expensive these cloudy nights, my kit wish list has doubled just recently!