The Pleiades
The Seven Sisters, Messier 45, Subaru, and other names by different cultures, is an asterism and open star cluster containing 100 million year old, hot B-type stars. At a distance of about 444 light years, it is among the nearest star clusters to Earth and it is the nearest Messier object to Earth. The cluster core radius is about 8 light-years and tidal radius is about 43 light-years. It contains over 1000 statistically confirmed members.
Reflection nebulae around the brightest stars were once thought to be left over material from their formation, but are now considered likely to be an unrelated dust cloud in the interstellar medium through which the stars are currently passing.  This dust cloud is estimated to be moving at a speed of approximately 18 km/s relative to the stars in the cluster.

Together with the open star cluster of the Hyades, the Pleiades form the so called Golden Gate of the Ecliptic (see below).

The name of the Pleiades comes from Ancient Greek Πλειάδες, from the verb plein ("to sail") because of the cluster's importance in delimiting the sailing season in the Mediterranean Sea.
In mythology the name was used for the Pleiades, seven divine sisters, the name supposedly deriving from that of their mother Pleione and effectively meaning "daughters of Pleione". In reality, the name of the star cluster almost certainly came first, and Pleione was invented to explain it.

The cluster is now known in Japan as Subaru, and its stylized profile appears in the omonymal car brand's logo.
It was chosen as the name of the Subaru Telescope which is the 8.2-meter (320 in) flagship telescope of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan. It is located at the Mauna Kea Observatory on the island of Hawaii. It had the largest monolithic primary mirror in the world from its commissioning in 1998 until 2005.

The Golden Gate of Ecliptic
The Golden Gate of the Ecliptic is built by the two open star clusters of the Pleiades and the Hyades that form the two posts of a virtual gate at the two sides of the ecliptic line.
Since all planets as well as the moon and the sun always move very closely along the virtual circle of the ecliptic, all these seven orbiting bodies are regularly passing through the Golden Gate. Since the moon is the closest of these heavenly bodies to the earth and it is inclined strong enough against the ecliptic, in some occasions the moon can cover the stars of the open star clusters or even can pass outside of the gate.

A mosaic of Pleiades was one of the first pictures I processed with PixInsight nearly 3 years ago. It is far from perfect, but the Newtonian spikes there still have their own "Subaru" fascination.


The Golden Gate of the Ecliptic: the dashed red line (ecliptic) passes through the gate formed by the Iades, in the middle of the picture with Aldebaran, and the Pleiades.