Astronomy Picture of the Day -- M45: The Pleiades Star Cluster

NASA ^ | September 03, 2012 | (see photo credit)

[SunkenCiv]

Explanation: Perhaps the most famous star cluster on the sky, the Pleiades can be seen without binoculars from even the depths of a light-polluted city. Also known as the Seven Sisters and M45, the Pleiades is one of the brightest and closest open clusters. The Pleiades contains over 3000 stars, is about 400 light years away, and only 13 light years across. Quite evident in the above photograph are the blue reflection nebulae that surround the brighter cluster stars. Low mass, faint, brown dwarfs have also been found in the Pleiades. (Editors' note: The prominent diffraction spikes are caused by the telescope itself and may be either distracting or provide aesthetic enhancement, depending on your point of view.)

[SunkenCiv]

[Credit & Copyright: Robert Gendler]

[SunkenCiv]

M45 is about seven miles from here.

join or quit list APoD 'blog post new APoD topic Astronomy Picture of the Day topic & keyword Astronomy Chat, Bloggers & keyword Science Chat, Bloggers & keyword NASA's APoD archive Calendar 1995-present APoD on your desktop

[cripplecreek]

Always a crowd pleaser.

[Nik Naym]

The Subaru logo.

[null and void]

Yep. Subaru is Japanese for The Pleiades.

Had one, hope to have one again some day. Great little car.

[SAR]

Why do you think it’s 400 light years away?

[SunkenCiv]

:’)

[Engraved-on-His-hands]

The Pleiades is a good object to illustrate an anomaly of our vision. Our eyes cannot collect the most light when looking straight ahead, but when looking slightly to the side. You might be able to see a certain number of stars in the Pleiades (perhaps 5 to 8) on a clear night when looking straight at it, but you might be able to see another star or two when you look slightly to the side and catch it “out of the corner of your eye”, so to speak. Try it. It works.

[SunkenCiv]

???

[beethovenfan]

God to Job: “Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion?” (Job 38:31)

“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows His handiwork.” (Psalm 19:1)

God, the awesome creator!

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks!

[haroldeveryman]

Because it takes 400 years to get all that dark out of the way.

[momtothree]

Like my girls said, “Oooohhhh, sparkly!” Beautiful, Sunky.

[Vermont Lt]

That’s where the greys are from. Or so they say.

[BatGuano]

The phenomena that you describe is due to the structure of the human eye. Basically the receptors in the eyes are cells that are rod shaped and cone shaped. The cones are in the center and the rods at the edge. You use the cones in good light and the rods in poor light conditions.

To illustrate this, toss a ball into the air in poor light, after dusk. If you try to look directly at the ball, you will not catch it. Look to the side and you, using the rods, will see it more clearly and be able to catch it!

[Nowhere Man]

The Pleiades is a good object to illustrate an anomaly of our vision. Our eyes cannot collect the most light when looking straight ahead, but when looking slightly to the side. You might be able to see a certain number of stars in the Pleiades (perhaps 5 to 8) on a clear night when looking straight at it, but you might be able to see another star or two when you look slightly to the side and catch it “out of the corner of your eye”, so to speak. Try it. It works.

I remember Carl Sagan told the same story in hos book, "Cosmos" where back in 1957, as a graduate student, he got a phone call from a man who saw a comet but when he looked direct at it, it disappeared but if he turned his eyes away slightly, he can see it. I've noticed it myself too.

[Nowhere Man]

That’s where the greys are from. Or so they say.

I've heard that too, but scientists say the stars are too young for life to have come about on their planets if they have any in orbit. Still for the sake of argument, if they did have planets, I assume they could have come from somewhere else and built bases and/or a new home there.

[terycarl]

ask any of your atheist friends if they think that this just “happened”?????

[left that other site]

I love that segment of the heavens!

[dr_lew]

Galileo published this diagram of his observation of the Pleiades. I can find corrrespondence of most of the lesser stars to a modern photograph, but their spatial relation is quite distorted. This is because the field of view of his telescope was so small that he had to mentally stitch the scene together. Even with this allowance, I find the three stars at the top under "CONSTELLATIO" problematical to identify.