Pleiades

hello there stranger from the world wide web. The pleiades also known as the seven sisters or messier 45 are an open star cluster containing middle-aged, hot B-type stars located in the constellation of Taurus. It is among the nearest star clusters to Earth and is the cluster most obvious to the naked eye in the night sky. This cluster is dominated by the by hot blue and luminous star.

The traditional Greek legend for the Seven Sisters, as this cluster has long been known, is that they are the daughters of Atlas and Pleione. Their father, Atlas, rebelled against Zeus, the king of the gods, who retaliated by sentencing him to forever holding up the heavens on his shoulders. This so grieved the sisters that Zeus placed them in the heavens so that they could be close to their father. the Pleiads were the seven daughters of Atlas, a Titan who held up the sky, and the oceanid Pleione, protectress of sailing. The sisters were Maia, Electra, Alcyone, Taygete, Asterope, Celaeno and Merope. The Pleiades were sometimes said to be nymphs in the train of Artemis

So why are the Pleiades called the Seven Sisters, when only six stars can be seen with the eye? In fact, the number of stars you can see within the Pleiades cluster, using just your eye, varies depending on your own eyesight, local atmospheric transparency and light pollution levels. Some people simply see fainter stars than others. It’s possible that early skywatchers, whose skies were darker and clearer than our modern skies, more often saw more than six stars here. Even today, people with exceptional vision see seven, eight or more stars in the Pleiades with the unaided eye. The Pleiades is also known as the most beautiful star in the sky.