The Pleides and Dust (Taurus) - RGB Widefield, Oct 2022
Williams Optics Redcat APO 51; - ASI2600MC;
Celestron CGEM II; Optolong Lum Filter
72 x 120s exposures, Bin 1, Gain 0;
134 x 210s exposures, Bin 1, Gain 100;
Total Integration Time = 10.2 hours;
Total Unculled Integration Time = 16.7 hours

As with other images here, the Pleides cluster also finds itself in the middle of a dusty cloud. However, in this case, the molecular cloud has nothing to do with the creation of the cluster - rather the stars in the Pleides are just passing through (at 18km/s!).
In addition, the dust in this cloud is mainly reflecting blue coloured light from the young (100 MMyrs), hot stars rather than emitting it's own visible light which tends to be red in colour. You can see some red, hydrogen gas emission taking place in the upper left of the Pleiades though.
In this image I wanted to show the scope and details of the cloud itselt, most of which is reddish brown in colour and weakly reflecting distant and redder starlight from outside the cluster.
The "several" sisters and other stars that make up the Pleides are only 444E6 yrs away, making it a relatively close cluster and reflection nebula.
This image was taking in broadband (RGB) colour. Twp different exposures were taken to capture the very faint dust while avoiding blowing out the bright stars. The dust is very faint and a lot of integration time is required, and really to make it stand out even more, another night of exposures would have helped separate the dust from background noise. In addition, removing the background gradient caused by the near full moon presented a challenge, and some lunar gradient can still be seen in the upper right of the frame.