Locomotoring

These photons from Pleiades landed on our camera sensor, so there!

We first noticed Pleiades in Anza Borrego, about the same time last year. We were camping (link). I add the photo below of Pleiades that we took back then.

Our stars bind us. There is perhaps no where else in the universe where the stars looks the same as it does to earthlings. Pleiades is bright enough that they have been part of ours folklores (link) since the beginning of our story telling.

As beginner astrophotographers, we have taken photos of Andromeda galaxy, Orion nebula and Pleiades. (I am not sure where our camera was pointing when we wanted the North American Nebula – this nebula is so big that we got lost searching for it.) For post processing, I wanted to start with Pleiades. It is one of those star systems that you can see with naked eye. In short exposures, the blues don’t become noticeable and integrating over time they become very prominent.

I processed the photos using PixInsight. Is it a coincidence that PixInsight is developed by a company called Pleiades Astrophoto? A bare 10 hours into a basic tutorial and processing, I feel like I was drowning in various image processing modules. I think I understand what is going on (thank you, STEM education) and yet it feels like a delicate dance. There could be many “tukdas” (small nuggets in Kathak, my other early stage adventure, link) that make up this dance and perhaps it doesn’t really matter which “tukdas” I pick as long as they come together in one dance. Right now, I am struggling to co-ordinate my hand and foot movements in the PixInsight world.