Astrophotos

• Location: Mount Pinos, CA
• Date: October 13, 2001
• Subject: M45, the Pleiades, in Taurus
• Exposure: 2, 45 min. shots stacked and enhanced in Adobe Photoshop
• Telescope: Megrez 80mm refractor @ f/5
• Mount: Losmandy GM-8
• Guiding: ST-4 autoguider
• Film: Kodak Elitechrome 200
• Comments: One of my first shots using the ST-4. A very bright, very large cluster of stars located about 400 light years from the Sun. The cluster has a slight resemblance to the big/little dipper asterisms, and is many times mistaken for one of them by many people. The brightest star, Alcyone, is at about magnitude 2.9 with the average magnitude of the seven main stars being about 3.95. The extremely faint reflection nebula IC 1995 can barely be seen around a brighter star near the lower left hand corner of the image.