black night sky

The Pleiades cluster of stars covers an area about four times the apparent size of the full moon. This is a reflection nebula, where the light from hot blue stars is reflected by interstellar dust. The two bright stars on the left side of the image are Atlas and Pleione, the parents in Greek mythology of seven sisters forming the nine brightest stars in this cluster. The name Pleiades indicates the sisters are daughters of Pleione. The cluster is 440 light years from the solar system. This image consists of a stack of 23 exposures of 20 seconds each using the Pentax Astrotracer function.