Messier 36 (NGC 1960) from my own backyard

The open cluster M36 (NGC 1960) lies in the constellation Auriga, forming a compact and bright grouping of young, hot stars often compared to a smaller version of the Pleiades.

I photographed this object twice with my DSLR camera roughly 20 years ago, during my early years in astrophotography. The most recent session was in 2007.

The data calibration and registration were carried out using DeepSkyStacker, while the final image processing was performed in PixInsight.

The images were taken with the following equipment:

• Date: 2007
• Location: Krefeld, Germany
• Telescope: Pentax 75
• Focal length [mm]: 500
• Focal ratio: 6.7
• Mount: Vixen GP-DX
• Camera: Canon 300Da
• Filter: OSC
• Exposure time [min]: 18
• Resolution: 3.04″/px

My first succesful images of this object I took in 2005 from my own backyard. The data calibration and registration was done with DeepSkyStacker and the final processing was done with PixInsight. The result was as follows:

The images were taken with the following equipment:

• Date: 2005
• Location: Krefeld, Germany
• Telescope: 8″ GSO Newton
• Focal length [mm]: 800
• Focal ratio: 4
• Mount: Vixen GP-DX
• Camera: Canon 300Da
• Filter: OSC
• Exposure time [min]: 12
• Resolution: 1.89″/px