7 Sisters of California

[Whistlin Bob]

This is my second attempt at this composition and some time off over the holidays is giving me time to catch up with processing…

This is quite a large chunk of sky between the Pleiades running up to the California nebula. I had a go at this around 9 months ago, but it was low in the sky at the time and I clipped the background to sort out atmospherics and light pollution gradients. It’s been nice to have another go closer to the zenith. The acquisition was as follows:

2 pane mosaic, taken through Altair 183c Pro camera on a Star Adventurer with a Canon 15 year old “nifty fifty” f1.8 lens. I found focussing at f1.8 just about impossible, so it’s stopped down to f2.8. I wanted to get as much of the dust as possible, so I didn’t use a filter and this restricted me to 30 second exposures at gain 1000. Each pane has 120×30 seconds.

I then enhanced the California nebula by blending it with some data taken back in October with a 1970s 135mm Soviet lens and an Ha filter.

I suspect that the dust could have been made more prominent had I taken this from a darker site, but I was still quite pleased at how much came out. Who needs a telescope? 😆

 

[callisto]

Love it 

 

Mark

[geeklee]

Great FOV and lovely image @Whistlin Bob  Well worth revisiting.  The colour of the California nebula and Pleiades look great together. 

[vineyard]

That's really lovely 👍🏾.  There must be something in the air b/c I'm enjoying playing with a Pentax nifty fifty on an iOptron Skywatcher Pro - sometimes its nice to just go light-weight & wide!

[tooth_dr]

Fantastic. Really is something seeming the star cluster and nebula together like this. 

[markse68]

Beautiful shot Bob!