The Daughters Of Atlas. May 03 2009 Amateur Astronomy Picture of the Day

May 03 2009 The Daughters Of Atlas.

Known by many names in different societies, the most common myth explaining the Pleiades is no doubt the Greek one. The gods of Atlas & Pleione, more accurately Titans, had 2 sets of daughters. One set is the Hyades. The other set are the 7 sisters represented by the Messier 45 cluster. The actual sisters are curiously NOT the 7 brightest stars in the cluster, although 1 of them, Alcyone, is the very brightest. Atlas, their father, is next, followed by Electra, Maia, Merope, & Taygeta. Then their mother, Pleione, steps in, appropriately right beside her husband. Finally Celaeno & Sterope finish out the sisters. The magnificent blue nebula that the stars reside in is as spectacular as the bright blue stars themselves, but it is only a chance encounter. M45 is the first object in the Messier catalogue that almost surely wouldn''t be confused as a comet. This suggests that Messier eventually was simply making a list of nice objects, not entirely "false comets".
Submitted by: DavidLee	Location: Slooh - Teide - T1HM	Date: April 11 2009

2009-05-03 03:02:05 GMT Marleen

Love this star cluster!!

2009-05-03 05:28:27 GMT Kochava

such a great cluster - visible with naked eye, and wonderful in binocs. I love the blue nebulosity visible in photos like this one. (yeah, I know, the nebulosity is sometimes visible in a scope, in optimal conditions - which I don't have in my light-polluted location.)

Messier apparently added M42-45, which were known non-comet-like objects, to bring his list up to 45 before publishing - either as a round number, or to make it longer than other lists that had recently been published

2009-05-03 14:00:55 GMT adumbleton

For those without perfect eyesight (like me) M45 can appear as a fuzzy patch in the sky without optical aid and therefore may appear to them as a 'false comet'. Perhap Messier himself did not have perfect eyesight and used his eyeball to spot some potential catalogue entries?

2009-05-03 18:41:20 GMT Tami

Beautiful!

2009-05-04 05:37:13 GMT TonyF

M45 is one my of Favorites Great AAPOD David, it really shows off the reflection nebula this cluster is moving threw.

2009-05-04 22:01:05 GMT LizG

has to be one of the prettiest sights in the night sky!!

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May 03 2009