Written by Mahmoud Ragheb
Friday, November 24, 2023 02:30 AM
The Pleiades cluster resembles the stars of Ursa Minor, except that it is fainter in appearance, and its location can be easily determined using the stars of Orion. If an imaginary line is drawn from the three stars in Orion in the opposite direction to Sirius, we reach a bright red star called Aldebaran, close to this star is The Pleiades cluster. . Due to light pollution it is necessary to use binoculars to view this cluster from within cities.
The Pleiades is an open star cluster of about 500 stars. According to modern measurements, the Pleiades were born from the same cloud of gas and dust, 4 and 100 million years ago as the Sun. billion years.
Bound by gravitational exchange, the Pleiades stars are 430 light-years from Earth, and these seven sisters travel together through space, many of them thousands of times brighter than the Sun.
When photographing this cluster, a trace of the nebula from which these stars formed will appear, with a telescope one will see more stars than the Seven Sisters, and with a large telescope one can see some nebulous objects around the stars.
Generally, the Pleiades cluster appears above the eastern horizon before Aldebaran and sets before it. The only exception to this rule is for those living in southern latitudes (south of the equator).
For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, the Pleiades cluster is associated with winter, although it will be visible in the evening sky from now until April 2024.
Notably, in late autumn and towards winter in the Northern Hemisphere, the Pleiades star cluster is visible throughout the night. The cluster can easily be imagined as a frozen blob on the dome of the night sky.
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