Pleiades Star Cluster (M45) 11-2-24

The Pleiades is a large and well-recognized open cluster of stars, also referred to as Subaru or the Seven Sisters. Nebulous regions surround several of the cluster’s prominant stars.

Technical details:

• Lens: SkyWatcher 120
• Camera: Nikon D3200
• Mount: SkyAdventurer 2i
• Filters: N/A
• Exposure: 527x15s at ISO3200
• Corrections: 56 darks, ISO3200 master bias, 53 flats, 53 dark flats
• Stacking: DeepSkyStacker
• Post-processing: PhotoScape X
• Bortle: 4

Notes for improvement:

• The stars in this image are huge. In the future, I would take less-exposed frames (probably lower ISO) to reduce the effect of large stars on the final stack. However, the main stars of the Pleiades are very bright and large stars are a frequent issue with my telescope. A field flattener would also help by reducing elongation near the edges of the frame.
• Framing could have been better. I could not fully rotate the image to align with the celestial equator because it would have cut off the Merope Nebula (NGC 1435) at the bottom of the image.
• More data is usually better, and this image was no exception. With greater total exposure time I would see clearer details and color in the nebulous regions.