pleiades

Updating an Old Favorite

 in Blog  tagged luminance masking / pleiades / Subaru

Back when I was selling prints of my astrophotos, the Pleiades/Subaru image was my best seller, even though it was done long ago – when my skills were significantly less developed.  And since it is well positioned in the sky now, I decided to shoot it again and use more sophisticated processing. The problem with the original version is that the very bright stars are “blown out” – just large white blobs.  Getting them to look more like pinpoint stars requires shooting some much shorter exposures in addition to the long exposures needed to get the faint dust.  The trick […]

Canyon & Dipper, Part 2

 in Blog  tagged big dipper / california nebula / Canyon / pleiades

In an earlier post I shared a picture taken at the top of a canyon wall, showing the canyon below and the the Big Dipper above (through some interesting clouds).  When I went down into the canyon (not actually the same one) I thought I’d try the same thing from this different perspective.  It would have been great to shoot this looking up the canyon wall, just as the previous shot was looking down such a wall, but since the Big Dipper was pretty low in the northern sky, that was not going to work.  Indeed, I had to walk […]

The Pleiades (aka Subaru or Seven Sisters, M45)

 in Gallery / Star Clusters  tagged cluster / image / picture / pleiades / seven sisters / stars

This open cluster of very bright, young stars is one of the best known objects in the night sky. It is significant in the mythology of many cultures, and therefore is known by many names. Yes, the Japanese automobile manufacturer takes its name and logo from the Japanese name for the cluster, Subaru. M45 is only about 400 light years from Earth – one of the nearest star clusters. It is located in the constellation Taurus. The stars themselves shine bright blue because they are so hot. The surrounding dust reflects this blue light to form the beautiful wispy structure. […]