Saturn and Vesta in Taurus
Credit & Copyright:
Joe Orman
Last November,
while skygazing toward the constellation
Taurus,
astrophotographer Joe Orman arranged this time exposure to
include the lovely Hyades and Pleiades star clusters in the
field of his telephoto lens.
A distance of 400 light-years
for the close-knit
Pleiades
and 150 light-years for the
V-shaped
Hyades
puts these clusters in the general galactic
neighborhood of the Sun.
Punctuating the Hyades' appearance, bright yellow
Aldebaran,
60 light-years away, is not actually a member of the cluster, but it is
Taurus' brightest star.
Above Aldebaran a yellower, even brighter
Saturn
is is seen about 1.2
light-hours
from our fair planet.
Last and least
massive,
one of the faint specks below Aldebaran is
main-belt asteroid Vesta, a mere 13
light-minutes away.
Still cruising through Taurus,
Vesta
is steadily approaching a
close alignment or conjunction with Saturn on March 19.
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