Bright blue stars wrapped in a blue reflection veil, portrait view.
Pleiades (M 45), portrait · © Martin Hudec

Star clusters & comets

Pleiades (M 45), portrait

The Seven Sisters in a vertical frame.

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About the object

The Pleiades (M45) in Taurus are an open star cluster about 440 light years away and roughly 100 million years old. The blue nebula around the stars is not the cloud they formed from – the cluster happens to be passing through it, and the dust reflects their blue light.

How the image was made

Captured
7 October 2025 (start, several nights)
Total exposure
11 h 34 min (344 × 121 s)
Camera
ZWO ASI2600MC Pro
Focal length
449 mm
Mount
ZWO AM5N
Location
Banská Bystrica, Slovakia (home observatory)
Calibration & stacking
Siril 1.4.0-rc2
Processing
Adobe Lightroom 9.0 (Windows)

Data from the original file’s metadata or from the author.