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M 45, The Pleiades, on 2025-11-24,25
M 45, also named the Pleiades, the Seven Sisters, and Messier 45, is an open star cluster containing young B-type stars in the northwest of the constellation Taurus. It is about 444 light-years away, among the nearest star clusters to Earth. It is the most obvious star cluster to the naked eye. It contains the reflection nebulae NGC 1432, an HII region, and the reflection nebula NGC 1435. The star Merope (23 Tauri) is a fourth-magnitude blue subgiant star embedded within the nebula NGC 1435 which glows from the star's light . For this reason the nebula is often referred to as the Merope Nebula. The cluster is dominated by hot blue luminous stars that have formed within the last 100 million years. Reflection nebulae around the brightest stars were once thought to be leftover material from their formation, but are now considered likely to be an unrelated dust cloud in the interstellar medium through which the stars are currently passing. This dust cloud is estimated to be moving at a speed of approximately 18 km/s relative to the stars in the cluster. This photo was taken in Kyle, Texas through a 4.5-inch f/4 Telescope on a Sky-Watcher EQ6-R mount, with a ZWO ASI533MC PRO color camera plus a Optolong L Pro Light Pollution Filter. The processing was done in PixInsight. The total image acquisition time is: 3 hrs 41 min 00 sec.