The Pleiades cluster is the easiest to spot in the sky. It is an open cluster 440 light years away in the constellation Taurus. The stars in the cluster are very young compared to our Sun, aged at only 100 million years. They are very hot as evidenced by their blue colour. The nebulosity around the stars consists of a dust cloud, unconnected to the stars but which they are passing through, reflecting the blue light from the stars.
This image is a mosaic in that it is formed from separate images. Two images were taken as the cluster size was greater than the field of view of the telescope. The images were cleaned of digital anomalies produced by the camera, stitched together using Paint Shop Pro and the blue component slightly emphasized.
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