The Pleiades Star Cluster
Photograph made from plates taken with the
UK Schmidt
Telescope. Color photography by David Malin.
Copyright:
Royal Observatory, Edinburgh,
Anglo-Australian
Observatory
It is the most famous star cluster on the sky. The
Pleiades can be seen
without binoculars from even the depths of a
light-polluted city.
Also known as the Seven
Sisters and
M45,
the Pleiades
is one of the brightest and most
easily visible
open clusters on the sky.
The Pleiades
contains over 3000 stars, is about 400 light years away, and only 13 light
years across. Quite evident in the above photograph is the blue
reflection nebula that surrounds the
bright cluster stars. Low mass, faint,
brown dwarfs have
recently been found in the Pleiades.