Stellar Shot of the Week: February 4, 2022
"Messier 45" - by Jeffrey Shokler

Congratulations to this week's official selection for the Stellar Shot of the Week, which goes to Jeffrey Shokler and his fantastic image of the Pleiades star cluster (otherwise known as Messier 45 or "The Seven Sisters"). Jeff's image is a wonderful combination of detail and delicacy, managing to bring out all of the little wispy bits without over-saturating anything or overdoing the contrast at all. The star colors look fantastic too, with the strong blues present in the cluster itself and a nice spackling of orange and white dots complementing the surrounding area. The framing is really nice as well with all of the most interesting part of the nebula contained nicely within the boundaries of the image. Great work, Jeff!

Messier 45 is an open star cluster containing middle-aged, hot B-type stars in the north-west of the constellation Taurus. At a distance of about 444 light years it is one of the nearest star clusters to Earth (and easily the nearest Messier object to Earth). Due to its size and the brightness of its component stars, the Pleiades is the most obvious cluster to the naked eye in the night sky. However, due to the reflective nature of the nebula you will still need relatively dark skies to get details like those we can see here in Jeff's shot. For more of Jeff's work make sure to check out his page on Facebook, which can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/jshokler

If anyone else shooting with a Stellarvue would like to share your work we would love to feature it as well! Please submit your shots any time by email (using mail@stellarvue.com) or by tagging them with #stellarvue and #stellarshot.

Imaging Details:

• Imaging Scope: Stellarvue 130EDT (f7)
• Imaging Mount: Celestron CGEM
• Imaging Camera: Canon 5D Mark II (modified; Baader UV/IR cut) (ISO 1600)
• Exposure time: 23x5 min (115min/1.9hr total)
• Guiding camera: Lacerta MGENII
• Software: PixInsight and Photoshop