Skywatchers
Adam Block and Tim Puckett caught this view of the Pleiades, a stellar
septuplet better known as the Seven Sisters.
Block and
Puckett used a Televue 127 telescope and an Apogee U9000 camera—not to mention
seven hours of patience—to develop this Pleiades portrait.
Despite its
numerical moniker, the Pleiades contain many more stars. Up to 11 have been
recorded in varying skywatching conditions on Earth, though the entire star cluster
has been found to contain 250 objects in all.
The
Pleiades sit some 410 light-years from Earth and span a 20 light-year swath of
sky. The entire cluster may be only 20 million years old, some studies suggest.
Here,
Puckett and Block capture a stunning look at the stellar group, whose light is
scattered by surrounding dust. The skywatchers recorded this view in early
October 2006.
This year,
the Moon will occult the Pleiades no less than 13 times.
-- Tariq Malik
Credit: Adam Block and Tim Puckett
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