[meyer]

Pleiades - I always seem to see more than 7 major stars there. I’ll have to dig up just which ones are considered the “7 sisters”. Also, the nebulosity isn’t normally visible in small to medium refractor telescopes. I’ll have to look through something larger to see if I can see it.

Now, astrophotography allows a lot of things to be see that we don’t normally view with mere optical equipment.

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

Meyer: This is a serious Astronomy slide of course; The Septriones; Seven Sisters; (Japanese for this constallation is Subaru, of course!)

Richard Hinkley Allen's Star Names book. has 11 pages describing ancient, modern, and non European names and story and myth about the Pleiades.

Ovid or Cicero said there were 6 stars with a seventh obscured behind a cloud; Hindu and Coptic writers talked about 6 stars. We have the advantage of telescopes and cameras. We can see 8 or 9 major stars i this asterism. He gives the names as:

Alcyone, Maia, Electra, Merope, Taygeta, Celeano, Asterope (Double star Sterope I and Sterope II ), and Pleione;

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

Its a beautiful grouping especially with them hanging in the gas/dust nebula.

There is a lot of commentary in the Star Names book about the Pleiades.