Look east after sunset (7 p.m.), one-third of the way up in the sky, and there is a small fuzzy patch. Look closer, and you see that it is a small cluster of stars. Binoculars will reveal their beauty. They are the Pleiades, or Seven Sisters (or in Japanese they are called Subaru).
Open clusters are young groups of stars only a few millions of years old in the plane of our Milky Way galaxy. They formed together from the same dust cloud and are thousands of stars slowly drifting apart.
The Pleiades are visible to your eyes because they are quite close compared to many of the stars we see. They are located in the constellation of Taurus, the bull.
Come see the splendor of the Pleiades and other celestial wonders in our Takahashi refractor telescope on the first Friday of each month from sunset to 10 p.m.: humbleisd.net/observatory.
By Dr. Aaron B. Clevenson
Observatory Director, Insperity Observatory
