The Pleiades (also cataloged as Messier 45) is an open cluster of stars in the constellation of Taurus. At about 450 light years away it is the nearest major open cluster to us and has been closely studied since ancient times. The prevalence of hot blue stars allows its age to be estimated to be around a hundred million years, which is relatively young in astronomical terms. Light from the brighter stars is reflecting from dust in the interstellar medium, giving rise to the blue glow characteristic of a reflection nebula.

The brightest strs in the Pleiades are visible to the naked eye, so very long exposures are not needed to capture images of them. However, longer exposures are needed to easily see the nebulosity around these stars. For this reason, Alexandra took two sets of exposures, one at 30 seconds to focus on the stars, and the other at 120 secs to focus on the nebulosity.

A light pollution filter was used to reduce background from artificial light sources, and the camera was cooled to reduce thermal noise in the images. Alexandra used the SiriL software to do the initial processing of her images, and then refined them further using PixInsight.