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                                                            Pleiades and California

 

On the right, dressed in blue, is the Pleiades. Also known as the Seven Sisters and M45, the Pleiades is one of the brightest and most easily visible open clusters on the sky. The Pleiades contains over 3,000 stars, is about 400 light years away, and only 13 light years across. Surrounding the stars is a spectacular blue reflection nebula made of fine dust. A common legend is that one of the brighter stars faded since the cluster was named.
On the left, shining in red, is the California Nebula. Named for its shape, the California Nebula is much dimmer and hence harder to see than the Pleiades. Also known as NGC 1499, this mass of red glowing hydrogen gas is about 1,500 light years away. Although about 25 full moons could fit between them, the above wide angle, deep field image composite has captured them both.

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It's obvious, that our heavens provide us with targets for all kind of scopes, lens, focal lengths and cameras. There is something for everyone... all the time...


So this time I decided to go for this beautiful pair, which are so distinct in their colors. While they turn out pretty small, they hold their beauty just fine. Interesting, while processing, I noticed that some regions had black background with pinpoint stars, when some other regions where kind of dim and blurry. Being unfamiliar with this region, I tried to fight it and correct it, until at some point I applied some curve and it pop up in front of my eyes.
 

What I was trying to fix, were actually flux of our galactic dust clouds. Then I reversed back all those steps where I was trying to fix it and instead kept it pronounced. It's really amazing, I didn't had too much time for this couple and shot only 10 frames and even those were through lens that were stopped by 2 stops and my histogram barely reached 20% and still, I've been able to pull some flux out.

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Technical Info:

Optics :          Tamron 17-50mm  XR Di-II LD SP @ 50mm @ f5.6

Camera :        Canon T3i (600D) Baader Mod           

Mount :           NEQ-6 Pro (Self Hypertuned)​

Guiding:          Orion SSAG + Stellarvue F50m2 + Barlow x2 (400mm)

Acquisition :    BackyardEOS 2.0.4   

Exposure :      10 x 600 sec @ ISO800 - 1 Hour 40 Minutes Total

Stacking :       DSS

​Processing :    Photoshop

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