M45 The Pleiades

This deserves a much longer exposure, but the moon was only about 20 degrees away...in a couple of weeks it will be in prime position for me to shoot it properly.

The Pleiades have to be the best known star cluster.What makes it so much more interesting to photograph than most open clusters is the large about of blue reflection nebula around it. In this short exposure, there is just a hint around a couple of stars. The nebulosity is actually just a bit dimmer than the moonlight itself, so there isn't a way to bring it out any more in these conditions. If it hadn't been for the dearth of pics the last two months, I may not have bothered posting it-but Tuesday night way like this; since I could shoot something in 30 minutes for the first time ever, that's exactly what I did. When the moon is this close to the target, no amount of baffling and flat frames can make the field even and richly black.

By the way, next time you see a Subaru, look at the badge on the hood. Look familiar? "Subaru" is the Japanese name for the Pleiades; the car company is named after it.