M45 - The Pleiades

[Buzzard75]

If anyone saw my post on the Imaging Tips and Tricks board you would know that I had some problems the other night with my rig. I was apparently out of focus and didn't find out until I went to process the data and had holes in my dimmer stars. Well, that got fixed the next night. I was fortunate enough to have two nights in a row that I could image. That almost never happens around here. But it was extremely cold both nights. Temps dropped down around -5C both nights. I about froze my toes off. I also had some issues with PixInsight while processing that I just couldn't quite figure out at first, until I realized my error. M45 is a very tricky object to image and process. I've seen other images of M45 with much larger sweeping clouds and it makes my image feel a bit inadequate. Then I realize those images were taken with a telescope that has 16x the aperture with an f/ratio twice as fast and they have at least 50% more integration time. So I'll take what I can get with my little Redcat.

Tech specs:
ZWO ASI183MM Pro
ZWO EFW with 1.25" ZWO LRGB filters
WO Redcat 51
iOptron CEM40EC
15x180s each filter (3 hours total integration), unguided
Calibrated with darks, flats, and dark flats
Captured in APT and processed in PixInsight with some minor level adjustments in Photoshop

[orion25]

Excellent! Great nebulosity and brilliant stars.

Regards,

Reggie