Adding lustre to your cluster

The Pleiades. Forty minutes of exposure as 8x5 minute subs + darks and flats. 127mm Meade refractor, Altair Astro field flattener and focal reducer , Canon 600D DSLR and QHY5-11 colour guide camera.

I'm really beginning to enjoy guided long exposure astro photography. It is a bit late in the season for imaging the Pleiades. By the time I got around to imaging this young star cluster it was low in the west, so I was fighting both atmospheric extinction and light pollution. Tried to image Jupiter but unfortunately the clouds came a rolling in off the sea at about 11.00pm on the 10th March 2016.  Just managed one brief and blurry video from which I extracted one stacked and sharpened still.

Sad to hear the news today that the progressive rock keyboard player and musician Keith Emerson had died. I can remember one memorable live performance of the 'Nice' in Manchester at a small venue. Both he and I were young in those days. A spirited rendition of 'Rondo' and 'America', complete with knives in the keyboard, jumping over the hammond organ and tickling the ivories backwards. Thanks for the memory Keith!