The Seven Sisters, or The Pleiades, is one of those celestial objects that most people can recognize in the autumn and winter northern night sky. Easily distinguishable at naked eye in the Taurus constellation, this star cluster shows its Seven Sisters only when being observed under a very dark sky and with good ocular skills.  

This open star cluster is one of the nearest from us, around 400 light years away. It is surrounded by huge amounts of dust from a reflection nebula. It is very young, and the first stars started to be born around 100 million years ago. It’s very hot and most of the stars are B-type, one of the hottest stars known.

This image is a LRGB combination captured from my backyard observatory in Prades. Due to its reflection nebula, a good way to catch all the faint detail that surrounds the open cluster is to use broadband filters during the darkest nights of the month.

Image Details

L: 37×600″ bin1 0Gain

RGB: 20×90″ bin2 300Gain each channel

 

Calibrated with 30 flats, 30 darks, 50 bias

 

Total exposure:  7h40’

 

Image resolution: 1.74”/pixel

Equipment

FSQ85ED telescope

Mesu200 mount

ASI1600MM camera with ZWO EFW 8 pos

Guiding with ASI174MC and ZWO OAG

Baader filters

Software

SGP, PHD2, APP, PIX.

Aleix Roig – Prades, Tarragona (Catalonia, Spain), November 2017.

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