The Pleiades, also known as the Seven Sisters or Messier 45, is a famous open star cluster located in Taurus constellation.
The brightest stars in the cluster represent the Pleiades, the Seven Sisters in Greek mythology, and their parents, the nymph Pleione and the Titan Atlas.
Messier 45 is one of the nearest star clusters to Earth. Its brightest stars lie at a distance between 390 and 460 light years. The cluster is mostly composed of hot, blue, highly luminous stars belonging to the spectral class B with an estimated age under 100 million years.
The Pleiades cluster contains more than 1,000 stars, not including unresolved spectroscopic binary stars. Up to 14 stars in the cluster are visible to the naked eye in good viewing conditions. The estimated mass of the cluster is equal to 800 solar masses.
M45 also contains a significant number of brown dwarfs; they are believed to constitute up to 25 percent of all the stars in the cluster, but as they generally have less than 8 percent of the Sun’s mass, the brown dwarfs in M45 contribute less than 2 percent to the total mass of the cluster.
The cluster has a tidal radius of approximately 43 light years, and the core radius is about 8 light years.
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www.constellation-guide.comAnother try at Messier 45, this time 9x120 second subs, 3 each RGB. Had hoped this fix over exposed bright stars which it seems to have helped but not eliminated. Also 4 most irritating satellites fly across image which had to fix trails by hand, most dull and time consuming. But quite happy with result in end!
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