The Pleiades or Seven Sisters is an open star cluster located in constellation Taurus. Contains middle aged (about 100 million years old), hot, blue and extremely luminous stars. The nebula surrounding stars is not formed by remnants left from the time the stars have been created, but unrelated dust cloud through which the stars are currently passing.
The Pleiades (M45) are prominous observing target in the winter sky (in northern hemisphere). Can be easily seen with naked eye – depending on the weather and sky conditions we can see up to seven brightest stars. It presents beautifully in binoculars, and in the larger telescopes we can see traces of the nebulosity surrounding cluster stars. Cluster is about 400 light years away, and its brightest stars are named for the seven sisters of Greek mythology: Sterope, Merope, Electra, Maia, Taygeta, Celaeno, and Alcyone.
‘Retro’ picture above has been exposed before Xmas 2013. Only luminance I was able to collect, but in fact the star and nebulosity color is blueish. I need to collect some more color and also luminocity exposures to make it look properly – so far so good 🙂
In this sky field of view there are also many faint galaxies, that can be noticed ‘through’ the star claster. In the enlarged picture above some of them have been marked with red lines. The apparent magnitude of these are about 17-19mag, and the distance is about million times larger (or more) than to the Pleiades itself.
Clear skies!
