Clouds of Taurus

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Here's a huge mosaic right at the junction of constellations Taurus, Perseus and Auriga, featuring their most popular objects, such as the Pleiades, the California, Spaguetti and Flaming Star nebulas, all bathed in interstellar clouds of dark dust - the huge Taurus Molecular Cloud - spreading all over the scene. Indeed, our night sky is anything but black.

The image was built from five different mosaics - four I have previously completed, plus additional data (21 new panes) captured between September 2016 and January 2017. The area is equivalent to a 45 pane mosaic. All captured with my usual rig: dual FSQ106 scopes + SBIG STL11k CCDs. Since the image is built from several mosaics, each has it's own integration times, etc.