M45 — The Pleiades
The Pleiades, a young open cluster in Taurus, wrapped in a bluish reflection nebulosity.
View photos ↓- Object type
- Open cluster
- Constellation
- Taurus
- Designation
- M45 (Cr 42)
- Distance
- ≈ 444 light-years
- Apparent magnitude
- 1.6
- Apparent size
- 110 arcmin (≈ 2°)
- Best season
- Autumn / Winter (best visibility in Nov-Jan)
The Pleiades (M45), also known as the Seven Sisters, form the most recognizable open cluster in the sky. Six or seven stars stand out to the naked eye depending on sky quality, while the cluster actually contains more than a thousand members.
Its brightest stars are hot blue giants, young on a stellar scale (about a hundred million years). The bluish nebulosity wrapping them is not their birth cloud but an interstellar dust cloud the cluster is currently drifting through, whose grains scatter the starlight — hence its characteristic cold color.
At 2° of apparent diameter, the cluster is a prime target for small wide-field setups: the short focal length of the S30 Pro frames it whole along with the surrounding nebulosity.
Shot with the Seestar S30 Pro from the Ain, France, 528 exposures of 10 s stacked and processed in Siril.
