Rookie Astronomy

This Deep Field Image was taken with a wide angle lens and shows the California Nebula in the Constellation Perseus and the Pleiades Star Cluster in Taurus.  These 2 features above us are actually quite distant in the sky; you could fit 25 full moons between them!

The Pleiades (pictured right) are one of the most watched star clusters in the night sky.  This open star cluster is located in the constellation of Taurus and contains a bunch of young hot Blue Stars.  The Pleiades owe their brightness to their close proximity to Earth at 400 light years away.  The Pleiades are surrounded by a fine dust which reflects their light and adds to their blue glow.

The California Nebula (pictured left) is a mass red hydrogen gas floating in space 1500 light years away.  It is so named the California Nebula due to the resemblance to the State of California.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 at 10:53 pm and is filed under Nebula, Pictures, Star Cluster. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.