The large and bright objects (Pleiades, California Nebula, and several star clusters) and lower star density make this wide-field image work fairly well. Compare it with the Cygnus Wide image. If you can make out the brighter stars the whole constellation of Perseus is shown here. M45 (the Pleiades) is in the upper right corner and the red swath near the center is the California Nebula.

The image was captured at the 2011 Oregon Star Party as a test of the Nikkor lens for astro photography (along with the Cygnus Wide image). Although it’s a pretty good lens, it is very hard to use for astro photography and in the future I plan to make this kind of image by making a mosaic of multiple images using my Tamron 70-200mm zoom lens.

Scope: Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 (at f/2.8)
Mount: Vixen GP2
Camera: Canon XT
Exposure: 19 x 240 seconds (1 hr 16 mins total)