The Pleiades – The Seven Sisters (M45)

Overview

The final Astro image of the year. This has been a return target goal for the past 4 years. This was one of the first targets I ever tried to image with a DSLR when I started, and I have never made the time to go after it again.

This project combines 27.7 hrs of total integration time across my LRGB filters. I tried several different approaches on this one that I plan to leverage in a revisit of the Alpha Persei Cluster when I get back from Arizona. This is my personal vote for the best broadband image I’ve produced all year. 
 
The Pleiades, also called the Seven Sisters, is a stunning open cluster of bright-bright stars. You can view them this time of year coming out of the east in the constellation Taurus. The cluster is only about 444 ly away, and because these stars are so young and bright, it’s predicted they will only live about another 250,000,000 years, which is VERY young for stars.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleiades