How to Photograph the Pleiades with DSLR and Lens

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This post explains how you can photograph M-45 with just a camera and lens.

About the Pleiades:-

The Pleiades, M45 in the Messier catalogue, also known as the Seven Sisters is an open star cluster that lies in the constellation of Taurus above the bright red giant Aldebaran. It is the brightest open star cluster in the sky which makes it an easy target for astrophotography for beginner astrophotographers. What is more attractive about it is the reflection nebula surrounding the stars. Reflection nebulae are masses of dust that reflect the light of nearby stars. The reflection nebula can be seen only in long exposure photos. The seven sisters remain visible in the northern hemisphere in the winters.

How to find the Pleiades in the Night Sky:

Finding the Seven Sisters in the night sky is pretty simple, they can be found above the constellation of Orion in Taurus. It can be easily found by using a planetarium app such as Sky Maps or Stellarium.

Pleiades in the night sky
Pleiades in Stellarium

How to Photograph the Pleiades:-

The Pleiades is a pretty easy target even in a light polluted city from where I photographed it. I took about 1700 pictures of 1.3 second exposures with my DSLR and 75-300 Canon lens at 300 focal length. Here is a single frame:-

Taking Light Frames:-

Light frames are the individual images of the object. Without a tracking device a lot of photos have to be taken to improve the signal to noise ratio by stacking them into one frame. For this purpose I corrected the focus of the lens by using a bright star as a reference. Then focused the seven sisters on the center of the screen and using my mobile phone I captured the photos continuously. The gear and settings are listed below:-

Equipment:-

  • Camera : Canon 2000D
  • Lens: Canon EF 75-300mm
  • A tripod
  • Mobile as remote shutter

Settings:-

  • Exposure time: 1 sec
  • ISO: 6400
  • Light Frames: Around 400
  • Aperture: 5.3 (lowest possible)
  • Light Balance: Daylight
  • Manual Focus

Taking Calibration Frames:-

Calibration frames consist of dark, bias, and flat frames these are taken to improve the quality of the image and remove noise, dark pixels and vignetting. To take dark frames just cover the lens with the lens cap and keeping all settings the same take about 50 pictures. 50 bias frames were taken with the cap at the highest shutter speed of 1/4000. The flat frames were taken with a uniform light source like a white screen on top of the lens with the same focus at Av mode.

Stacking and Post-Processing the Pleiades:

Having all the pictures loaded into the computer, I used Deep Sky Stacker to stack them into one frame which I used in post processing in GIMP to create the final photo.

The Final Image:-

The seven sisters with reflection nebula
The final stacked image of the Pleiades having total exposure time of around 20 minutes

In the final image you can see the bright stars of the Pleiadies and the surround dust. In a darker sky the dust may be more apparant and the picture more detailed.

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