My first acceptable attempt at astrophotography.

Pleiades

The Pleiades Star Cluster derives its name from Greek Mythology, and represents the seven sisters who were companions of Artemis. Though, it is unclear whether the name of the star cluster predates the myth of the seven-sisters. The seven brightest stars of the cluster represent each sister but, in the present-day, only six bright stars are visible with the naked-eye. This is due to the proper motion of the stars in the system, which have since brought two stars close enough together that they cannot be resolved into individual points without the assistance of a telescope.

The surrounding nebula is illuminated through the reflection blue light from the young hot stars in the cluster. Preserving the nebulosity while reducing observations is inherently challenging due to its low surface-brightness. This produces two problems: it is easy to subtract the low surface-brightness features (which are comparable in brightness to the sky in each exposure), and it is difficult to collect enough exposure time. This picture, taken from Providence, RI, only catches the brightest regions of the nebula due to how bright the surrounding sky is in the city. The data for this image was collected in a single night with a filter to reduce the sky background due to light pollution.