The Pleiades and Surrounding Interstellar Dust

Image Title: M45 Pleiades mosaic HaLrgb

Copyright: Mirko Tondinelli

Date image was taken: November 23, 2025

Location: Texas Rockwood

Data Acquisition Method: Personal Telescope Setup

Description and Details: Beyond the Blue: M45 as You've Never Seen It

The Pleiades are perhaps the most photographed object in the sky, but sometimes you decide to go beyond what you've already seen. That's why the guys at Itex_observatory and I decided to create this two-panel mosaic.

We didn't want to focus solely on the classic blue reflection nebulosity. The goal was to capture the immense clouds of interstellar dust (IFN) surrounding the cluster and extending well below it, revealing a complex, almost three-dimensional structure.
Then, as I think you've understood our philosophy by now...we didn't stop there.
Another challenge was imaging this subject in
IH-alpha; a real feat. The signal is extremely weak, almost evanescent, but it's essential for giving depth and texture to the dusty areas, differentiating the stellar reflections from the hotter gases. Bringing out these details required almost 50 hours of integration.

Technical Details:

L: 119 × 600″ = 19 h 50′
R: 55 × 300″ = 4 h 35′
G: 55 × 300″ = 4 h 35′
B: 57 × 300″ = 4 h 45′
H: 190 × 900″ = 47 h 30′

Total 81 hours 15′

Acquisition Equipment:

TS-Optics 70 mm f/5 Quadruplet
QHYCCD QHY268 M
iOptron HAE29EC
Optolong Blue 2"
Optolong Green 2"
Optolong Red 2"
Optolong H-Alpha 3nm 2"
Optolong 2" Luminance

Accessories:

DeepSkyDad (FP2)
QHYCCD QHYCFW3-L
WandererAstro WandererBox Plus V3
WandererAstro WandererRotator Mini
ZWO EAF

LRGB restored the natural colors (photo 1), while H-alpha "dug" into the darkness, revealing structures rarely seen in standard shots (photo 2).
I did a fairly extensive post-production job, which took me several hours in front of the computer, but the effort was ultimately worth it with every single pixel of this splendid image.

Name: Mirko Tondinelli

Website or Facebook Profile: https://www.facebook.com/share/1AMum2aKCZ/