Pleiades (M45/Seven Sisters) - How To Photograph, Tips, Facts

The Pleiades star cluster (also known as the Seven Sisters or M45) is one of the best astrophotography targets for every beginner astrophotographer. It's one of the easiest targets to locate, thanks to its size and brightness - you can see it on your DSLR's live screen. In addition, you can capture the M45 with a wide range of lenses - wide, standard, telephoto, and telescopes. This tutorial will teach you to photograph the Pleiades star cluster with a DSLR or a mirrorless camera.

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Pleiades fact sheet
How to find the Pleiades on the night sky
Camera settings for photographing the Pleiades
My progress on photographing the Pleiades
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Pleiades fact sheet

Object	Pleiades
Object type	Open cluster
Other names	M45, Messier 45, Seven Sisters, Subaru
Constellation	Taurus
RA (right ascension)	03h 47m 24s
DEC (declination)	+24° 07′ 00″
Magnitude	1.6
Angular size	110 arcmins

How to find the Pleiades on the night sky

The Pleiades is an open star cluster located in the constellation Taurus. It's so bright that you can see it with your naked eyes, even from the center of a highly light-polluted city. M45 is a Fall-to-Winter astrophotography target in the Northern Hemisphere, so prepare yourself with warm clothes when shooting it.

Finding the Pleiades in the night sky is simple. First, locate the Orion constellation. Then go upper-right, and voila - that little cloud-looked-like structure, best seen when not looking directly on it, it's the M45!

How to find Pleiades on the night sky. — Pleiades location in the sky. It's easiest to find the Orion and then go with the direction pointed by the Orion's Belt up-right.

Camera settings for photographing the Pleiades

Your shutter speed and ISO depends primarily on two things:

Your lens aperture
If you track with an equatorial mount or not

Non-tracking

If you use a fast wide-angle lens on a stationary tripod without tracking, start with these settings:

Aperture	Wide-open (f/2 or f/2.8)
Time	30 seconds
ISO	3200 or more

If stars on your picture are not pinpoint (but instead so-called star trailed), then reduce the exposure time by a few seconds and set higher ISO. If you are happy with the result, shoot at least 20 total exposures, and stack them to reduce noise and increase the signal-to-noise ratio. Then, post-process it as a regular RGB astro-image.

Tracking

If you have access to an equatorial mount, then definitely make use of it! Start with those settings, and read below how to tune them:

Aperture	Wide-open
Time	120 seconds
ISO	800 or more

Those settings depend heavily on your glass aperture and focal length. Generally, the Pleiades is a very bright object and can be easily overexposed. In case of that, lower your exposure time and compensate with ISO. Experiment until you have a pleasing effect, then capture 20-30 exposures, stack them, and process as usual.

My progress on photographing the Pleiades

The Pleiades with a wide-angle lens, untracked

The first time I captured the Seven Sisters, it was by accident. Those times I wasn't even familiar with the night sky, so I was shooting randomly just for the sake of experimenting with astrophotography and exploring the night sky. So here's my first encounter with the Pleiades in February 2018.

Pleiades on the wide-field image of the Winter Milky Way — Wide-field view on the Pleiades star cluster in a forest in Winter. My first ever picture of the Seven Sisters is also one of my first astrophotography pictures. I captured it as several exposures stacked later together with my Fuji X-T20 camera and Rokinon/Samyang 12mm f/2 lens without tracking. Orion constellation and nebula in the bottom-left.

Pleiades star cluster on the Winter Milky Way shot. — Can you spot the Pleiades here? Yep, that blue blob on the right is our star cluster.

A very basic astrophotography setup: camera, lens, and tripod. — My astrophotography setup at the moment. A mirrorless camera, a wide-angle lens, and a tripod. Pure and simple. Perfect gear for the Milky Way photography.

Advancing to a telephoto lens and tracking

Very soon after, I acquired an equatorial mount (Fornax Lightrack II) and a telephoto lens (Rokinon/Samyang 135mm f/2). Boy, it was an upgrade! A lot longer exposures, more zoom on the objects (resulting in higher image resolution, thus more detail), and no more star-trails (well, a lot less at least). Pleiades star cluster is a perfect target for a telephoto lens; sadly, I bought mine around March, so it was just after the season for shooting Subaru. But a few months later, Pleiades began to appear low on the horizon in the early morning.

Pleiades (M45, Seven Sisters, Subaru) — My first try on the Pleiades with a telephoto lens. Poor tracking and a lot of signal cut in post-processing due to the overwhelming light pollution and past inability to adequately remove during the post-processing.

Pleiades (M45) — My second try on the M45 was with proper tracking and better conditions (object higher in the sky). Also, first time using calibration frames (darks and flats). Not an ideal picture, but better than the previous one.

My mobile widefield deep-sky astrophotography setup — The astrophotography setup I made pictures above. Fornax Lightrack II, Fuji X-T20, Rokinon/Samyang 135mm f/2.0, Manfrotto 475B, and a few more accessories.

Finally with a telescope

Using an APO telescope (even a small one) is best to photograph the Pleiades. Make sure to equip your scope with a field flattener and some filter to block the artificial light if you live in a light-polluted area.