The Pleiades
From Scope F70076
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| - | ''Sep 20, 2008'' This was the first night this year when the sky was dark and clear enough after the light nights in summer. There were still some clouds in the sky. Again it was quite easy to find the Pleiades (the Messier object M45) because the Moon was quite near it, and because the Pleiades is a quite big object so that when moving from Moon in the approximately right angle, it was easy to see that object in the finder scope. To find it otherwise, the Pleiades is in the constellation Taurus, and Aldebaran (Alpha Tauri) is the brightest star in Taurus. Aldebaran is a very bright, less than magnitude 1 yellow star, so one most likely can find it, but the Pleiades itself is also quite bright, so with clearer skies one may also see it with the naked eye. The Pleiades filled all the field of view of my 20mm eyepiece. There were the seven bright stars, and many smaller ones. I saw something which resembled nebulosity, but it was likely rather a large number of small stars which my telescope couldn't resolve. Later I also saw Pleiades with the naked eye. It was a glow in the sky bigger than the Moon, but it was very faint so that it was barely visible, it is possible to see it though when you know where to look. The Pleiades cluster was mentioned by Homer in 750 B.C. | + | ''Sep 20, 2008'' This was the first night this year when the sky was dark and clear enough after the light nights in summer. There were still some clouds in the sky. Again it was quite easy to find the Pleiades (the Messier object M45) because the Moon was quite near it, and because the Pleiades is a quite big object so that when moving from Moon in the approximately right angle, it was easy to see that object in the finder scope. To find it otherwise, the Pleiades is in the constellation Taurus, and Aldebaran (Alpha Tauri) is the brightest star in Taurus. Aldebaran is a very bright, less than magnitude 1 yellow star, so one most likely can find it, but the Pleiades itself is also quite bright, so with clearer skies one may also see it with the naked eye. |
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| + | The Pleiades filled all the field of view of my 20mm eyepiece. There were the seven bright stars, and many smaller ones. I saw something which resembled nebulosity, but it was likely rather a large number of small stars which my telescope couldn't resolve. | ||
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| + | Later I also saw Pleiades with the naked eye. It was a glow in the sky bigger than the Moon, but it was very faint so that it was barely visible, it is possible to see it though when you know where to look. | ||
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| + | The Pleiades cluster was mentioned by Homer in 750 B.C. | ||
Revision as of 18:55, 13 October 2008
Sep 20, 2008 This was the first night this year when the sky was dark and clear enough after the light nights in summer. There were still some clouds in the sky. Again it was quite easy to find the Pleiades (the Messier object M45) because the Moon was quite near it, and because the Pleiades is a quite big object so that when moving from Moon in the approximately right angle, it was easy to see that object in the finder scope. To find it otherwise, the Pleiades is in the constellation Taurus, and Aldebaran (Alpha Tauri) is the brightest star in Taurus. Aldebaran is a very bright, less than magnitude 1 yellow star, so one most likely can find it, but the Pleiades itself is also quite bright, so with clearer skies one may also see it with the naked eye.
The Pleiades filled all the field of view of my 20mm eyepiece. There were the seven bright stars, and many smaller ones. I saw something which resembled nebulosity, but it was likely rather a large number of small stars which my telescope couldn't resolve.
Later I also saw Pleiades with the naked eye. It was a glow in the sky bigger than the Moon, but it was very faint so that it was barely visible, it is possible to see it though when you know where to look.
The Pleiades cluster was mentioned by Homer in 750 B.C.
