Skip to main content

Pleiades - M45 : Courtesy of SLOOH

My subscription with SLOOH is still active and I thought that I will shoot through it while the monsoon season is over in Sri Lanka.

My target of choice this time was the Pleiades (M45). The Pleiades, also known as Severn Sisters are an open star cluster. While it is a "cluster" the distance between the stars are massive. If you take two main stars of it, Alcyone and Merope, Alcyone is about  443 lightyears away from earth while Merope is about 380 lightyears away. The actual cluster also contains about 1000 stars in actuality.

 

Single shot of 5min exposure. Canary Three 11" telescope (SLOOH)

 

10x5min stack. Canary Three 11" telescope (SLOOH)

As I've mentioned earlier on, I don't feel that I am doing anything worthwhile when I am shooting with SLOOH. It's a matter of just scheduling the photo and waiting for it to come out, then stack. I was therefore quite happy when I figured I may have actually caught a meteor across the frame. The photos were taken around the time of Perseids, and Pleiades are close enough to the constellation Perseus, so this may have actually been a Perseid.


Can you spot the meteor? Check on the upper half of the and left side quadrant. The light streak going across is a meteor!

Comments

  1. Nice! It could also be a satellite? Is this on a single frame (5 min exposure)? Very cool that you are using the SlOOH Telescope! Thanks for sharing. :)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment