Astrophoto: Beautiful Electric Blue Pleiades

M 45: The Pleiades. Credit: Chuck Manges

What a great shot of the Seven Sisters! M45, or the Pleiades is a cluster of stars that contains hundreds of stars, but just a handful are commonly visible to the unaided eye. The stars in the Pleiades are thought to have formed together around 100 million years ago, making them 1/50th the age of our Sun, and they lie about 450 light years from Earth. Chuck Manges, (astrochuck on Flickr) took this image on January 5, 2013 with a QHY9M camera and an Orion ED102CF telescope, and processed it in Photoshop. Gorgeous!

Want to get your astrophoto featured on Universe Today? Join our Flickr group or send us your images by email (this means you’re giving us permission to post them). Please explain what’s in the picture, when you took it, the equipment you used, etc.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy has been with Universe Today since 2004, and has published over 6,000 articles on space exploration, astronomy, science and technology. She is the author of two books: "Eight Years to the Moon: the History of the Apollo Missions," (2019) which shares the stories of 60 engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make landing on the Moon possible; and "Incredible Stories from Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos" (2016) tells the stories of those who work on NASA's robotic missions to explore the Solar System and beyond. Follow Nancy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Nancy_A and and Instagram at and https://www.instagram.com/nancyatkinson_ut/