M45 – The Pleiades Cluster and Reflection Nebula
Where blue stars set ancient dust clouds aglow
The Pleiades, or Seven Sisters is a very popular object in astrophotography; it is a young open cluster in Taurus about 444 light years away. Its name comes from the seven brightest stars—Alcyone, Merope, Maia, Electra, Taygeta, Celaeno, and Sterope—though the cluster contains more than a thousand members in total. Formed roughly 100 million years ago from the collapse of a molecular cloud, its luminous B-type stars now light up the surrounding interstellar dust, creating the distinctive blue reflection nebula.
The dust itself is not a remnant of the cluster’s birth but part of an unrelated interstellar cloud through which the stars are currently passing. As they move together through this region of the Milky Way, their light scatters through fine grains of dust, producing the soft veils and faint brown filaments that envelop the cluster.
Imaged in LRGB on my Planewave DR 350 at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile.
Image acquisition and processing: Mike Selby