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Post by auntym on Sept 19, 2013 10:41:43 GMT -6
apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130918.html2013 September 18 M45: The Pleiades Star Cluster M45: The Pleiades Star Cluster Credit & Copyright: Roberto Colombari Explanation: Have you ever seen the Pleiades star cluster? Even if you have, you probably have never seen it as dusty as this. Perhaps the most famous star cluster on the sky, the bright stars of the Pleiades can be seen without binoculars from even the depths of a light-polluted city. With a long exposure from a dark location, though, the dust cloud surrounding the Pleiades star cluster becomes very evident. The above exposure took about 20 minutes and covers a sky area several times the size of the full moon. Also known as the Seven Sisters and M45, the Pleiades lies about 400 light years away toward the constellation of the Bull (Taurus). A common legend with a modern twist is that one of the brighter stars faded since the cluster was named, leaving only six stars visible to the unaided eye. The actual number of Pleiades stars visible, however, may be more or less than seven, depending on the darkness of the surrounding sky and the clarity of the observer's eyesight. MORE: asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?&t=25327
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Post by Deleted on Sept 19, 2013 14:54:44 GMT -6
The Pleiades is one of the 1st celestial objects I learned and helped to make a great guide for learning other stars. Nebulosity can be detected when conditions are just right but it will not show up like the pictures because it takes long exposures to detect those photons.I suggest using low power (magnification)to get the best views. Aldebaran, a red giant, just below them in the same constellation (Taurus), was one of the 1st stars I learned. Just below Taurus is the constellation of Orion (see charts in the link Auntym posted). For those with telescopes of any size, one of the best objects to observe (besides the Pleiades), is Orion's nebula (M42). It is located just to the right of the 3 stars (alnitak, anilam, and mintaka) of Orion's belt (between Betelgeuse and Rigel). To see it at it's best using a telescope, use low power. You will be absolutely amazed at this object, it's a mind blower. Using lower powers will give brighter, and a wider field of view. Many beginning observers make the common mistake of trying to use the highest magnification when making attempts to see nebulaes and galaxies which only leads to discouragement. Only certain distant ones require higher power. Enjoy the views.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 19, 2013 16:38:17 GMT -6
thanks for the information, Cliff! and Aunty!
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Post by auntym on Sept 3, 2014 11:03:50 GMT -6
newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2014/08/28/distance-to-famous-star-cluster-remeasured/?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=Social&utm_content=link_tw20140902ngnw-starcluster&utm_campaign=Content&sf4445563=1 Seven Sisters Star Cluster Controversy SolvedPosted by Andrew Fazekas in StarStruck August 28, 2014 Optical image of the Pleiades taken through a ground-based telescope shows off the nebulosity these relatively young stars are still wrapped in. Courtesy of NOAO/AURA/NSF Good news for fans of that stargazer’s favorite, the Pleiades. Such star clusters are closer than astronomers supposed, most particularly when it comes to the iconic one known to many sky-watchers as the Seven Sisters. Not only does a new study, published in Science magazine by a team led by Carl Melis of the University of California, San Diego, put to rest a heated cosmic controversy over the distance to the Pleiades, but it may recast how we peg stellar distances. More than 1,000 star clusters, groupings of thousands of similarly aged stars, litter the galaxy. The suggestion that the Pleiades was 10 percent farther away from us than long calculated had clouded study of these clusters. The discrepancies in distance left researchers scratching their heads for years, challenging their basic understanding of how stars form and evolve. Now though, Melis and colleagues report that a global network of radio telescopes has triangulated the distance to the star cluster. The newly attained distance to the famous wintertime star cluster, located in the constellation Taurus, has been pinned down to 443 light-years. Made up of scores of hot blue stars all around 100 million years old, the Pleiades is considered one of the closest star clusters to Earth and is therefore considered a great “cosmic laboratory” for helping us understand how they form and evolve. Our own sun is believed to have been born in just such a cluster some 4.6 billion years ago. Up until the 1990s, the distance to the Pleiades was estimated at 430 light-years, but the European stellar mapping satellite Hipparcos, launched in 1989, had made measurements of only about 390 light-years. CONTINUE READING: newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2014/08/28/distance-to-famous-star-cluster-remeasured/?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=Social&utm_content=link_tw20140902ngnw-starcluster&utm_campaign=Content&sf4445563=1
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Post by auntym on Apr 30, 2016 14:19:57 GMT -6
Neil deGrasse Tyson ✔ @neiltyson
Subaru is what Japanese call the Pleiades cluster. The car's logo evokes its six brightest stars.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 30, 2016 15:37:15 GMT -6
Kind of funny...of all of the claims of alien life in different galaxies (Andromeda etc) the one I 'sense' has life is in the Pleiades cluster. It always has struck a chord.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 30, 2016 16:17:11 GMT -6
In the same field of view is a distant galaxy because of our frame of reference. Jo, I always thought nearby aldebaran might have life. Intuituion, of course.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 30, 2016 22:06:05 GMT -6
Their names are beautiful …
Atlas Pleione Galena Electra Taygete Merope Alcyone Asterope Celaeno Maia Titan
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Post by Deleted on Apr 30, 2016 22:36:20 GMT -6
I is ALL beautiful..gives me chills sometimes of pure pleasure. And you're right the names are lovely
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Post by auntym on Nov 27, 2018 17:14:52 GMT -6
mysteriousuniverse.org/2018/11/november-is-the-month-of-the-pleiades-or-seven-sisters/
November Is The Month Of The Pleiades – Or Seven Sistersby Jocelyne LeBlanc / mysteriousuniverse.org/author/jleblanc/November 28, 2018 Stargazers better hurry up and get outside before the end of the month if they want to see the best view of the Pleiades star cluster – also known as the “Seven Sisters” or “M45”. Because the cluster of seven stars is so well placed in the night sky, November is often called the “month of the Pleiades” because it can be seen from dusk until dawn. The cluster of stars can be seen from pretty much anywhere on the planet from the North Pole all the way down to the southern tip of South America. According to astronomers, it is believed that the Pleiades stars were created from the same gas and dust cloud around 100 million years ago and are approximately 430 light-years away from us. This cluster contains several hundred stars – some of which are hundreds of times brighter than our own sun – and moves through space at a speed of around 25 miles per second. If you’re wondering where to look in the night sky, it’s actually pretty easy to find. First thing you do is look for Orion’s Belt which is the three stars in a row in the Orion constellation. Once you find Orion’s Belt, you imagine putting a line through them and keep going until you get to a pattern of V-shaped stars (this is the Face of Taurus the Bull). Just past those, you’ll see one really bright star and that’s called Aldebaran. A little bit past the bright Aldebaran star, you’ll find the Pleiades star cluster. Since the majority of people see six stars instead of seven, there is a story about the lost Pleiad. In fact, according to astronomer Robert Burnham Jr., the myth of the lost Pleiad is a well-known legend among Europeans, Asians, Africans, Native Americans, Indonesians, and Aboriginal Australians. The seventh-brightest star in the cluster, called Pleione, varies in brightness so that may explain the supposedly missing seventh star. Some people see more than seven stars in the Pleiades cluster. Agnes Clerke, who was a writer and an astronomer in the 1800s, said that Michael Maestlin (who was the mentor of Johannes Kepler) claimed to have counted eleven stars in the cluster. This was, of course, before the invention of the telescope, so unless he had exceptional eyesight, nobody really knows how many stars he actually saw. However, since it’s now the year 2018, we have the ability to see more stars in the cluster with a telescope or strong binoculars. For those who don’t own a telescope, it’s possible to see additional stars by letting your eyes adjust to the darkness for at least 30 minutes. Throughout the years, the Pleiades star cluster has worked as a type of calendar for several different civilizations. In the old Mediterranean world, on the day when the cluster of stars was first seen in the sky before sunrise, it indicated that it was the beginning of the navigation season. According to the Druids, when the cluster of stars reached the highest point in the night sky (at midnight), it was the time that the veil separating the living from the dead was at its weakest. The Zuni people of New Mexico call the Pleiades stars the “Seed Stars” and when the cluster isn’t seen anymore in the evening sky each spring, it indicates the beginning of their seed-planting season. mysteriousuniverse.org/2018/11/november-is-the-month-of-the-pleiades-or-seven-sisters/
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