M45: The Pleiades or Seven Sisters

The Pleiades, or Seven Sisters, is a famous open star cluster visible to the naked eye in the winter sky. What is not visible to the naked eye are the blueish wisps of nebulosity surrounding the larger central stars. The blue color is typical of a reflection nebula, which is lit up by the light from the nearby stars, and is not formed by glowing gas as in an emission nebula.

Below is my original image of M45, and was an attempt to see what I could capture with a very simple setup from my driveway in the light-polluted suburbs of Maryland. A simple equatorial mount with a small refractor, 2-minute exposures with a DSLR and no filters (OK, on a moonless night). I wasn't expecting to get much of the blue nebulosity, but I was quite pleased with how much showed up. Total exposure time was a bit over three hours.