Pleiades or The Seven Sisters

The Pleiades or Seven Sisters are clear stand-outs in the winter sky. At a distance of 444 light years, they are one of the closest star clusters to Earth. They are also relatively young, having been formed within the last 100 million years.

They are seen here illuminating gossamer folds of nebulosity but this is a chance encounter with dust in the interstellar medium and not material left over from the cluster s formation. It has been determined stars are moving at 18km/s (11 miles per second) relative to the dust in the nebula.

The upper image is a total 2 hour exposure taken on October 29^th, 2022 through a 5 inch telescope from Eustis Ridge.

The following two images have a 10.3°×6.9° field of view and show the extent and structure of the dust cloud which the stars of the Pleiades are traversing. These images are a stack of 58×3 minute subframes for a total exposure of 2^h54^m taken on October 28^th, 2024 using cooled astronomical one-shot color camera attached to a 135mm telephoto. The right hand (or lower) image has had the stars digitally removed to better display the intricate structure of the dust cloud.