Also known as the Seven Sisters, and more famously as the star formation in Subaru’s logo, this is the magnificently blue Pleiades or M45 in Messier’s catalog. Subaru is in fact the name of this constellation in Japanese, hence the connection to the car manufacturer!
This target was imaged with what would become my standard setup for imaging narrow-field / high-magnification targets. The capturing setup was the AT8RC Telescope, QSI683 camera, Astrodon RGB filters, and a Lodestar X2 guide camera on top of an Atlas EQ-6 mount.
Captured in the light polluted skies of San Jose, California. To see such detail is testament to how bright this target is. I’d love to see it in a dark sky setting! The image was produced using the following data:
Looking at the data for this image on Astrobin, it looks like this was one of the first times I dared to, and was able to, push the cameras cooling capabilities down to -25 degrees celsius at the imaging sensor. Cooling the camera down to near -30 degrees helps reduce all background heat radiation. It ensures that the only electronics being captured by the imaging sensor are those that have travelled for thousands, if not millions, of years to reach us.
