M45, Pleiades



  • Exposure time: 210 minutes (42x 300s)
  • Processing: Nebulosity (pre-processing, stacking & DDP); Adobe Photoshop CS2 (post-processing)
  • Lens/telescope: Takahashi FSQ-106ED (4.2") quadruplet ED refractor at f/5 with IDAS LPS-P2 filter
  • Camera: Q453-HR one-shot colour CCD
  • Mount: Losmandy GM-8
  • Guidescope: Vixen 70/400 mm + ST-4
  • Location: Zoetermeer, The Netherlands
  • Date: December 30, 2008
The asteroid on the image in the top left corner is 15th magnitude "813 Baumeia" (courtesy of Albert van Duin for looking that up).
I actually wanted to expose 48 frames of 5 minutes (making a total of 4 hours). Though after 3.5 hours of exposing, the telescope ran into the tripod...



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