Canon 350D Hap Griffin Baader Mod
40x180sec at iso 1600
30 Darks/Flats/Bias
APM/TMB 130/780 with APM Field Flattener

A severe crop of M45 from the Open Clusters Gallery.

The small and usually hidden reflection nebula IC 349 under Merope is seen in this specially proccessed image. It's proximity to 4th magnitude Merope makes it difficult to image.

Merope's mass is roughly 4.5 solar masses and has a radius more than 4 times as great as the Sun's. It is classified as a Beta Cephei type variable star and its brightness varies by 0.01 magnitudes.

In 1890, American astronomer E. E. Barnard, observing visually with the Lick Observatory 36-inch telescope in California, discovered the nebulosity adjacent to the bright Pleiades star Merope. It is now cataloged as IC 349, or "Barnard's Merope Nebula." IC 349 is so bright because it lies extremely close to Merope -- only about 3,500 times the separation of the Earth from the Sun, or about 0.06 light-year -- and thus is strongly illuminated by the star's light.

The Hubble Space Telescope image of this nebula can be seen here.

NGC 1435 is the larger diffuse nebula spread through this entire field, called the "Merope Nebula".

November 27, 2008