Image: The Pleiades / M45. Image Credit: mrstaypuft. "Needing little introduction here is M45 / The Pleiades, the ubiquitous star cluster asterism that travels the night sky in northern hemisphere winters / southern hemisphere summers. Because of their visibility, these stars garnered frequent special timekeeping and mythological treatment throughout many ancient cultures, including the Aborigines, Chinese, Maya, Aztec, and Native North Americans. Representations in mythology differ throughout cultures, but these stars were almost universally associated in a female nature, and are commonly known to us as the "Seven Sisters". The five brightest stars are visible by the naked eye even in the brightest of urban areas, and more or less than seven can be visible depending on sky darkness. Look almost straight up this time of year early in the night and you can enjoy them yourself! What can't be seen without long exposures, however, is the beautiful dust in this area. Much of it is reflected by the young hot blue stars of the asterism, while further reaches take on a gorgeous rusty hue. This entire region throughout Taurus (reaching far beyond this field of view) is littered with even more dust, some of which can be seen to the edges of this frame. The dust's proximity to the stars, however, is just a happenstance, totally unassociated in a scientific nature with the asterism as the stars simply travel through it at a distance of about 400 light years from us."
