The Pleiades (aka. The Seven Sisters, M45) is an open star cluster dominated by hot blue stars that formed within the last 100 million years. I imaged the Pleiades with my new telescope hoping to capture more detail in the dust clouds. A surprising detail captured is Reflection Nebula IC 349, seen very close to star 23 Tau (Merope). It’s only 0.5 arcminutes (0.008333 deg) in diameter, about 25 pixels across at my imaging scale. At first, I thought it was an optical aberration caused by the intense luminosity of the star Merope.

Total Exposure: 12h 52m