K3's Astronomy - Deep Sky

	"When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which You have set in place, what is Man that You are mindful of him?" -- Psalm 8:3,4
	K3's Astronomy - Deep Sky

M45 - The Pleiades

Click the picture to see full resolution photo (968x681 pixels, 4.05"/pixel).

M45 - The Pleiades 11.01.2003 (21:14 - 22:13 UT)
Resolution: 8.1 arcsec/pixel
Camera: Nikon Coolpix 995, f=22.4mm
Telescope: 80mm F5 Refractor, 25mm eyepiece afocal
Result focal length: 358.4mm (~44X Zoom)
Result focal ratio: F4.48
Exposure: 42x20s (ISO400, sunny white balance), Noise Reduction
Camera control: The Force software
Processed by K3CCDTools, then in Corel PhotoPaint.
Seeing: windy, soft fog, Moon in first quarter, temperature -8°C

Inspite of Moon in first quarter I decided to capture M45. The shine of Moon wiped faint details, but I am quite satisfied with results.
The image was processed without flat field correction.
Processing details:
1, Aligned and summed in K3CCDTools
2, Exported to FIT
3, R, G and B FIT files (planes) were stacked in Maxim DL Demo
4, Flatten background applied in Maxim DL Demo to suppress uneven field illumination
5, Resized to 50%, then gamma 2.0 applied
6, Histogram stretching - in 5 steps
7, Each step was saved into separate file
8, The files were summed in K3CCDTools again

See More detailed study about postprocessing M45 and analysis of captured image

	M45 - The Pleiades 11.11.2001 (0:51 UT) Resolution: 46.2 arcsec/pixel Camera: Vesta 675SC at photo tripod Objective: 2/50 Flexon Exposure: 25x3s (gain 100%), 25xDF Seeing: lim.magnitude for naked eye 4.5 The Pleiades is well known open star cluster visible even by naked eye. Click the image to see the full size pictures (23.1"/pixel).
	M45 - The Pleiades 11.11.2001 (01:47 UT) Resolution: 46.2 arcsec/pixel Camera: Vesta 675SC at photo tripod Objective: 2/50 Flexon Exposure: 30x5s (gain 100%), 25xDF Seeing: lim.magnitude for naked eye 4.5 The same night, but longer exposure. Click the image to see the full size pictures (23.1"/pixel).

Back to Messier Catalog

Computer generated images, real images, drawings and texts are property of the author and may not be reproduced or used without permission of author.

Last Update: 12.01.2003