A portrait of two comets each passing the Pleiades and in a similar location relative to the star cluster, but taken nearly 14 years apart. And I shot both with the same lens, a 200mm telephoto, from my backyard in Alberta. On the left is Comet Machholz (C/2004 Q2) discovered in 2004 by amateur astronomer Don Machholz, and at centre Comet 46P/Wirtanen, discovered in 1948 by professional astronomer Carl Wirtanen. Both comets became bright enough to be visible to the unaided eye. I shot Comet Machholz with a Canon Rebel 300D cropped-frame camera, and Comet Wirtanen with a Canon 6D MkII full-frame camera, so the image scale is different between the two images. So … on the far right is a version with the two images layered and auto-aligned with Photoshop, so the stars and field scale and orientation of the Machholz image match and register with the Wirtanen image. Pretty remarkable that Photoshop was able to do that on images so different in scale and orientation. Having lots of stars helped. This version shows the location of two comets with respect to the Pleiades best.
A constellation portrait of Auriga (upper left), Taurus (bottom), and Perseus (top), framing the large finger-like Taurus Dark Clouds in this dusty region of the outer Milky Way. Included are several of the bright pink emission nebulas in this part of the Milky Way, notably the California Nebula at top and the Flaming Star complex at centre. At bottom left is the star cluster Messier 35 in Gemini and several of the bright nebulas near it. At right is the blue Pleiades star cluster. At bottom right is the large Hyades star cluster. The trio of Messier clusters in Auriga, M36, M37, and M38, also show up on this scale. Aldebaran is at bottom; Capella is at top. This is a stack of 22 x 4-minute exposures with the 28-70mm Canon RF lens at f/2.8 and 35mm, on the Canon Ra, shooting through an URTH Night broadband light pollution filter. A final exposure through an Alyn Wallace/Kase StarGlow filter added the glows on stars. The camera was on the Star Adventurer Mini tracker (every frame was usable). Bands of red airglow drifted through the frame during the sequence of shots but the stacking smoothed out their discolouration of the sky.
Venus above the Pleiades star cluster, M45, on April 4, 2020, in the twilight and moonlight. Light from the gibbous Moon illuminated the sky, so no long exposure would reveal much detail in and around the Pleiades. Venus passes close to the Pleiades only every 8 years. It was closer the night before, but alas, there were clouds! Some light cloud this night added the glow. This is a stack of multiple exposures of varying lengths: 2 minutes, 30 seconds, 10 seconds and 2 seconds, blended with masks to prevent Venus from being too blown out while still recording the stars. All were with the SharpStar 140mm PH apo refractor with the 0.73x flattener/reducer for f/4.8 and at ISO 400 with the Canon EOS Ra.
