Captured during the Winter Solstice event at Big Cypress National Park, this image of M45—the Pleiades, was created from 75 two-minute exposures using a fast f/3.6 imaging setup. More than 2,450 attendees shared the night as live-stacked images revealed this iconic star cluster in real time, blending public outreach with a deep-space target that first sparked my astrophotography journey nearly 20 years ago.

The Pleiades would "flee mighty Orion and plunge into the misty deep" as they set in the West, which they would begin to do just before dawn during October–November.