Messier 45 The Pleiades Open Cluster in Taurus (astrobillbinMontana)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Taurus (Tau) · Contains: Maia nebula · Merope nebula · NGC 1432 · NGC 1435 · The star 18Tau · The star Celaeno (16Tau) · The star Electra (17Tau) · The star Merope (23Tau) · The star Sterope I (21Tau) · The star Taygeta (19Tau) · The star ηTau

Messier 45 The Pleiades Open Cluster in Taurus, astrobillbinMontana

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Messier 45 The Pleiades Open Cluster in Taurus

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Messier 45 The Pleiades Open Cluster in Taurus

Set within a cloud of interstellar dust we find the magnificent blue jewell-like open star cluster popularly known as The Pleiades or The Seven Sisters (M45). Located within the Constellation Taurus (The Bull), this open cluster has an apparent visual magnitude of 1.6 and an angular diameter of 110 arc-minutes.

This open cluster is easily visible with the naked eye even from light polluted skies and has been known from antiquity. Mention of it can even be found in the Hebrew Scriptures of the Holy Bible where it is identified by its Biblical Name, The Kimah Constellation (Job 9:9).

M45 is located at a distance of 425 light years from Earth and spans a diameter of 15 light years. The cluster contains 332 stars with an average age of 100 million years. Given the estimated age of the Universe at 10.5 +/- Billion years, they are relatively young stars that comprise this group.

The nebulosity surrounding the stars is light reflected from the particles of cold gas and dust into which the cluster has drifted. The nebulosity takes on the color of the blue stars in the cluster because tiny motes of interstellar dust scatter blue light more efficiently than the longer wavelengths of red light. The same goes for the scattering of sunlight in our Earth's atmosphere - that is why the sky is blue!. The nebulosity also appears streaky or rope-like because of the distribution of the dust particles in space.

Please note: The following tables are updated every 24 hours.

Distribution of astrophotographers

This table shows the number of distinct astrophotographers who have been assigned and IOTD/TP award compared to the total number of images awarded.
	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

Distribution of subject types

This table shows the distribution of awards per subject type, compared to the popularity of images of that subject type.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

Distribution of data sources

This table shows the distribution of awards per data source, compared to the popularity of images acquired from that data source.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
Promotions by Submitters When 3 distinct Submitters promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for Top Pick status. This requirement, in addition to anonymization of images and distribution to only a subset of them, prevents biases and ensures that the best images are selected.
Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

Status	Basic success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	1257425
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

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Messier 45 The Pleiades Open Cluster in Taurus

Messier 45 The Pleiades Open Cluster in Taurus

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Image Index:

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Messier 45 The Pleiades Open Cluster in Taurus

Messier 45 The Pleiades Open Cluster in Taurus

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