Pleiades up close - M45 (north.stargazer)

Pleiades up close - M45

Meet Alcyone, Merope, Electra, Celaeno, Taygete, Sterope & Maia

In Greek mythology, the Seven Sisters (or Pleiades) were the daughters of the titan god Atlas and the sea nymph Pleione. The story goes that Atlas challenged Zeus and was punished by having to hold up the heavens for eternity. The daughters were so distraught that Zeus allowed them a place in the heavens next to their father. Similar legends about this bright cluster exist in many cultures and under different names.

I know, it's more like dozens of sisters, but that doesn't sound as nice 🤩. The cluster, found in Taurus, is actually home to about 800 stars! In ancient times, how many of the seven sisters you could see, was a form of eye test.

Here's a fun trick. Squint as tight as you can while looking at this image and the "7" main stars will jump out. The two in the upper left actually combine into one.

I was planning to shoot this, like most people, as a wide field... capturing the surrounding dust and gasses. But, my only free scope at the time was the FLT132. Waaaay too much scope for this object. So I did what any red-blooded astrophotographer would do. I shot it as an unnecessarily large 2 panel mosaic with just under 7hrs of combined exposures.

I needn't have bothered because, in the end, I really liked this close-up detail view, showing how these hot blue young stars are lighting up the dust in the interstellar medium around them. To paraphrase a line from Blade Runner, the light that burns twice as bright, lives half as long - and you have burned so very, very bright. These B type stars will only live a fraction of the time of smaller/cooler stars like our own sun.

I also included the full 2-panel view in the 2nd image (hint: mom and dad are the two big stars at the bottom).

I wonder if the ancients understood how truly beautiful these seven sisters were?

Final
Original
B

B

Title: Original 2-panel mosaic (uncropped)

Description: wider field

Uploaded: ...

The OSC Club (One Shot Camera)
Light Polluted skies
ZWO ASI 2600MC PRO
The refractors!
Canadian Astrophotography

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	5237255
PixInsight job	BHDHHESVVCH3U22IC9TMJUU6F670QT06
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	03h46m12s.206
RA (top/left)	03h45m15s.388
RA (top/right)	03h43m29s.333
RA (bottom/right)	03h47m08s.588
RA (bottom/left)	03h48m55s.357

Dec (center)	+24°09′54″.30
Dec (top/left)	+24°45′02″.78
Dec (top/right)	+24°04′58″.56
Dec (bottom/right)	+23°34′41″.93
Dec (bottom/left)	+24°14′41″.61

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