Open Clusters
I like open clusters, especially visually. While any deep sky object
benefits from dark skies and/or aperture, open clusters tend to show
well even from my back yard. I also like open clusters because there was
many an episode during my visual observing days when I wished I could
take pictures of these objects to share with friends and family. So I
can say that open clusters helped pave the way for imaging to me.
I don't like open clusters. When imaging other deep space objects, stars
usually take a back seat to the processing (not that I should ignore
them). When imaging open clusters, it's all about the stars, so I have
to take extra steps to make sure I get their colors correct and that
they're not too harsh or too soft.
I like open clusters. They are relatively easy to shoot from a
light-polluted site. While best results will be achieved shoot from a
dark site, reasonable results can be achieved from even my back yard.
The only penalty will be the density of the surrounding star fields.
Given this dichotomy of love/hate regarding open clusters, my results
have leaned so far in the "don't like" camp. I only have a few open
cluster images reasonably all right to share. But I hope to add to the
list over time, especially as I slowly accept that I can image them with
decent results even from my light-polluted back yard.
M34 | M44 | ||
Double Cluster | The Pleiades |