Was stargazing tonight and I think I saw the Pleiades star cluster

[Rainb0wdashie 60]

So it's like 1:30 AM right now. I got home from dropping my friend off and I noticed the sky was completely clear. Absolutely no clouds.

 

I decided to look at the stars. Like I always do, I find Orion first, because he's the easiest to spot. And as my eyes focused I started seeing more and more stars, and off to the right of Orion I saw this odd cloud looking thing. I at first thought it was a smudge on my glasses or my breath but I could even see it in my periphery when looking at other stars. It reminded me of nebula dust like on the arm of the Milky Way.

 

As I continued to look at it this cluster of faint tiny stars came into view that seemed to be moving around a center star in this squarish rhombus pattern. They seemed to be moving around in different formations and appeared to be streaking around like little bugs.

 

I did some research and this is what I found:

 

The Pleiades star cluster – also known as the Seven Sisters or M45 – is visible from virtually every place that humanity inhabits Earth’s globe. It can be seen from as far north as the north pole, and farther south than the southernmost tip of South America. It looks like a tiny misty dipper of stars.

 

For northern hemisphere viewers, the cluster is above and to the right of Orion the Hunter as one faces south, and it transits -- reaches its highest point in the sky, midway between rising and setting -- around 4am in September, midnight in November, and 8pm in January.

 

The cluster contains hundreds of stars, of which only a handful are commonly visible to the unaided eye. The stars in the Pleiades are thought to have formed together around 100 million years ago, making them 1/50th the age of our sun, and they lie some 130 parsecs (425 light years) away.

 

That sounds a lot like what I saw, and it makes sense for how long it took my eyes to focus to see them. My friend is super jealous because he's an aspiring astronomer/meteorologist and he doesn't have very good vision so he couldn't focus like that.

 

It was really cool to see, almost thought I was looking at a UFO for a moment.

Edited December 2, 2014 by Rainb0wdashie

[Starlighty 1,050]

That is super cool and sounds so amazing to see! I am jealous !

[Castle_Cross 332]

You had to take a photo so we can see it, it sounds amazing :0

[Raritas 6,820]

Sounds about right, it's a spectacular sight. I've seen it many times through my telescope, and the 7 stars, or sisters, are so clear it's incredible When I first saw it I was just in awe at how many stars there actually were in the cluster, it's impossible to count them all!

 

I'm a bit of a astronomy nut, so I love these sorts of threads