On Thursday May 6th, at Dino Pt, when I was "done" taking shots of my current project, I went for a quickie of this pair (M10 and M12) that despite they're not that far apart, I've never seen as a pair before.

Since I was just taking something without any preparation or plans, I first did a quick processing that resulted into a nice and simple image of these two globular clusters (800x532 version, 3779x2512 version).

Then I posted this version on a web forum and a couple of friends were quick to say "I stretched your image and I saw there's some of that dust we like so much". Funny, because when processing the luminance I too I did notice a few "odd" structures that I knew couldn't be gradients,

Anyway, this area is rather close to the Milky Way, so it makes sense there's "stuff" in the FOV, so I reprocessed it. I wasn't completely happy with the results so a couple of nights later at DeepSky Ranch I decided to capture more luminance, this time 7 subs of 15 minutes each. The "dusty" result is what you can see above. The image isn't as contrasty and probably less appealing to some than the original version, but for those into this type of thing I think it's kind of cool. The structures aren't as well defined as they should because the data is still somewhat marginal and this stuff is really faint.

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DATE May 6th, 2010 PHOTO Exposure: L: 3 x 10' + 7 x 15', RGB: 3x5' each, Total: 3 hours Focal: 385mm, f/3.6

EQUIPMENT Imaging Scope: FSQ 106 EDX w/Reducer Camera: STL11k Guide Camera: StarShoot Autoguider Mount: EM-400

SITE & CONDITIONS Dinosaur Point and DeepSky Ranch, California Seeing: Terrible Transparency: Good SOFTWARE Stacking: DeepSkyStaker Processing: PixInsight & Photoshop

Most classic images of M45 - also known as The Pleiades or the Seven Sisters - tend to capture the blueish reflected dust of this famous cluster. However, the region of our galaxy in this direction also has the typical reddish hydrogen gas emission. Also, some dust doesn't reflect the light from the stars so strongly, so it acquires a grayish hue. This widefield image, captured during CalStar'09, shows this peculiar dance of dust and gas, easily differentiated by their colors.

This image was selected as NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day on October 14th, 2009

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DATE September 17-19th, 2009 PHOTO Exposure: L: 11 x 10', R: 6 x 10', G: 6 x 10', B: 12 x 15', Total: 6.8 hours Focal: 385mm, f/3.6

EQUIPMENT Imaging Scope: FSQ 106 EDX w/Reducer Camera: STL11k Guide Camera: StarShoot Autoguider Imaging Scope: EM-400

SITE & CONDITIONS CalStar @ Lake San Antonio, California Seeing: Good/Ok Transparency: Very Good/Regular SOFTWARE Stacking: DeepSkyStaker Processing: PixInsight & Photoshop

COMMENTS
I went to Coe the night of August 12th to take some widefield and hope that some Perseids make into the FOV. But when I was done setting up my equipment, the Pleyades looked at me in a funny way, and I changed my plans,

However, since it was already very late and I was very tired, I didn't want to stay there until sunrise, so I ended up doing only 3 shots, 17 minutes each. Yeah, that would put the Canon to the limit but I really wanted to see how much data I could gather without breaking the camera :-), so I went to the longest single exposure I've ever done (17 minutes). With that, some canned darks (15 minutes darks though) and over 5hours processing, I've got this picture.

The image is rather noisy, but considering I had only a handful of frames, I think this is probably the best work I've done as far as applying the noise reduction - it's often hard to find the best point where the image isn't too noisy neither too blurry. Also, the nebulosity surrounding M45 wasn't that blue at first, and I admit pushing the level a bit too much to the blue side.

In any case, I am very happy with this image for several reasons. First, I conquered an amount of detail and depth I wasn't expecting - the data was there in the picture, but the processing was crucial here. Second, this was the first time I took single exposures over 15 minutes and the guiding came out pretty good - although of course this field has plenty of bright stars to use as guides :-) And third, the Pleyades was one of my very first astrophotography targets back in December 2007, and it was very nice to compare the old version with the new one.

In any case, here's an object that I will most definitely revisit later on, but with more shots, exposure, and definitely more coffee :-)

COMMENTS
First nigth out ever!! There are tons of images of the Pleyades out there. If you've already seen a few, this one might not add anything to what you've already seen, but being my second astrophoto ever, I cannot be more proud! :-) The fact that it's only 3 shots, 3 minutes each, also shows how bright this object is - well, at least the reflection nebula surrounding the brightest stars :-)