Starship Asterisk*

I've always loves the pleides. Every time they come around in the evening, the weather has started to cool here in Iowa. So I know winter is coming. The Pleides and Orion are my winter staples.

I've heard that the Pleides, M45, Seven Sisters, is also known by the name Subaru.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap071118.html

rigelan wrote:I've always loves the pleides. Every time they come around in the evening, the weather has started to cool here in Iowa. So I know winter is coming. The Pleides and Orion are my winter staples.

I've heard that the Pleides, M45, Seven Sisters, is also known by the name Subaru.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap071118.html

Did you know the Subaru logo has 7 stars representing the 7 sisters of the Pleiades.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleiades_(star_cluster) 8)
Orin

rigelan wrote:I've heard that the Pleides, M45, Seven Sisters, is also known by the name Subaru.

orin stepanek wrote:Did you know the Subaru logo has 7 stars representing the 7 sisters of the Pleiades.

Subaru is the Japanese name for M45. The Japanese car manufacturer was named after this open star cluster. The logo (from the parent company logo) actually has only six stars; one big one representing the parent Fuji Heavy Industries, and five smaller ones representing the subsidiaries.

bystander wrote:

rigelan wrote:I've heard that the Pleides, M45, Seven Sisters, is also known by the name Subaru.

orin stepanek wrote:Did you know the Subaru logo has 7 stars representing the 7 sisters of the Pleiades.

Subaru is the Japanese name for M45. The Japanese car manufacturer was named after this open star cluster. The logo (from the parent company) actually has only six stars; one big one representing Fuji Heavy Industries, and five smaller ones representing the subsidiaries.

Your right! When I found out that Subaru was named after the Pleiades; I omitted to count the stars on the logo.

Orin

sorry to disappoint ya'll but i think the Southern Cross is my favorite collection of stars. I grew up looking at it. Perhaps tomorrows APOD could add the Cross and start a Star Wars battle ? Imagine if the egyptians lived in the southern hemisphere ? pass the beer and keep up the good work

"...The Pleiades contains over 3000 stars, is about 400 light years away, and only 13 light years across. ..."

It must be a difficult task finding all those stars that belong to the cluster and are not foreground or background stars. Do they use the parallax method to measure the distances of the individual members of the cluster in order to determine their membership? If not, how do they determine the membership?

Gary

are those clouds of light or what?

I vote for " excited atoms "..............

I believe the Pleiades is actually a "Reflection Nebula" meaning that the light we see is produced by the local stars and bounced off the nebular dust

BMAONE23 wrote:I believe the Pleiades is actually a "Reflection Nebula" meaning that the light we see is produced by the local stars and bounced off the nebular dust

The Pleiades is actually an open star cluster. The reflection nebula is just an unrelated dust cloud the cluster is passing through.

666

bystander wrote:The Pleiades is actually an open star cluster. The reflection nebula is just an unrelated dust cloud the cluster is passing through.

As is the case with all deep sky objects, there is no official designation. Thus, "Pleiades" means just what the user intends. In actual usage, it is used to refer to both the cluster and to the nebula. BTW, this isn't purely a reflection nebula. Deep images of the region clearly show Ha emission, so those hot stars are stimulating a bit of local hydrogen amongst the dust cloud.