Took this image over 315 minutes.

Reflection nebulae reflect light from a nearby star. Many small carbon grains in the nebula reflect the light. The blue color typical of reflection nebula is caused by blue light being more efficiently scattered by the carbon dust than red light. This nebula (NGC 1435) is called Merope Nebula as it surrounds Merope (23 Tau), one of the brightest stars in the Pleiades (M45). The Pleiades nebulosity is caused by a chance encounter between an open cluster of stars and a molecular cloud.

I had taken this nebula in 2015 with the larger magnification telescope, and therefore it covered only part of the Pleiades star cluster. With the lower magnification Stellarvue SV130 (f/6.6 with focal length 680mm), I got the entire star cluster with beautiful gas clouds around them.

Took this new image over 485 minutes (~8 hours). (Luminance 29 images of 10 minutes and RGB color of 5 minutes for 13 images each).

Post in 2015

Took this image over 315 minutes.