This large interesting region is located on the border of the constellations of Taurus and Perseus. Hold your mouse cursor over the image to see object identifications.

Covering about 31 x 21 degrees, this wide-angle image shows a complex of bright red emission nebulae, star clusters, blue reflection nebulosity, and complex dark nebulae including the Taurus Molecular Cloud (TMC).

This image represents the longest amount of exposure that I have put into a single image. The faint detail in this image is very faint and requires long exposure to record it. Also, the image was shot at a reasonably dark observing site, but not as dark as it could have been. Brighter skies require longer exposures to make faint stuff visible.

Because clear skies are not that abundant in my part of the country, I decided to shoot this area with two cameras simultaneously over the course of two nights. That allowed me to shoot 3 hours each night when the area was high enough to image, and gave me a total of twelve hours of exposure in just six hours total.

• Lens: Canon 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 at 35mm, Nikon 35mm f/2, Canon 50mm f/1.8, Nikon 50mm f/1.4
• Focal Length: 35mm and 50mm
• Exposure: 732 minutes (12.2 hours) total exposure
  • Modified Canon 1000D - 31 x 5 min at 35mm at f/4.5 at ISO 1600 with Astronomik CLS filter
  • Canon 20Da - 31 x 5 min at f/4.5 at 35mm at ISO 1600 with Hutech LPS filter
  • Modified Canon 1000D - 54 x 4 min at 50mm at f/2.8 at ISO 1600 with Astronomik CLS filter
  • Canon 20Da - 103 x 2 min at 50mm at f/2.8 at ISO 1600 with Hutech LPS filter
• Mount: Losmandy GM100EQ polar-aligned German-equatorial mount
• Guiding:Autoguided
• Cameras:
  • Modified Canon EOS 1000D (Digital Rebel XS) DSLR
  • Canon EOS 20Da DSLR
• Mode: Raw
• ISO: 1600
• White Balance: Custom
• In-Camera Noise Reduction: Off
• Filter: Hutech LPS, Astronomik CLS
• Temp: 30F
• Date: November 21 and 22, 2009
• Location: Scott's Pit near Maxwell, NJ
• Calibration: Images Plus with automatic dark frame matching
  • Canon 1000D - Darks: 35 x 10 min at 40F at ISO 1600, Bias: 23 x 1/8000th at 40F at ISO 1600
  • Canon 20Da - Darks: 36 x 10 min at 40F at ISO 1600, Bias: 16 x 1/8000th at 40F at ISO 1600
• Processing: Calibrated in Images Plus. Aligned in RegiStar. Sub-sets combined in Images Plus with min-max excluded average. Combined, corrected and enhanced in Photoshop CS2.