Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Taurus (Tau)  ·  Contains:  Maia nebula  ·  Merope nebula  ·  NGC 1432  ·  NGC 1435  ·  The star Atlas (27Tau)  ·  The star Celaeno (16Tau)  ·  The star Electra (17Tau)  ·  The star Merope (23Tau)  ·  The star Pleione (28Tau)  ·  The star Sterope I (21Tau)  ·  The star Taygeta (19Tau)  ·  The star ηTau
Pleiades (M45) In The Dusty Lanes of the Taurus Molecular Cloud, astrobillbinMontana
Pleiades (M45) In The Dusty Lanes of the Taurus Molecular Cloud
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Pleiades (M45) In The Dusty Lanes of the Taurus Molecular Cloud

Pleiades (M45) In The Dusty Lanes of the Taurus Molecular Cloud, astrobillbinMontana
Pleiades (M45) In The Dusty Lanes of the Taurus Molecular Cloud
Powered byPixInsight

Pleiades (M45) In The Dusty Lanes of the Taurus Molecular Cloud

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The very familiar Pleiades (M45) are found moving through the dusty lanes of the Taurus Molecular Cloud. It is amazing to me how much dust there is in the vacuum of space. Space is definitely not empty.

I used the Exponential Transformation function in PixInsight to enhance the dust that surrounds this spectacular grouping of stars.

Here is some additional information about the Pleiades from one of my previous posts of this same object:

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 to 13.5 +/- 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.

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Pleiades (M45) In The Dusty Lanes of the Taurus Molecular Cloud, astrobillbinMontana