Hyades
The Hyades is a large, naked eye open star cluster in the constellation Taurus. At a distance of 151 light years, it is the closest cluster to the Sun and contains 300 to 400 stars. The Hyades forms the v-shaped face of Taurus, but the bright red star Aldebaran is not of the cluster but rather a much closer foreground star at a distance of 65 light years.
The cluster is about 625 million year in age. Stars in the Hyades are slowly drifting away from the core of the cluster will eventually escape from its gravitaional influence. Most open clusters dissociate within a billion years after their formation.
Technical Details
- Object: Hyades
- Object Type: Open Star Cluster
- Other Names: Caldwell 41, Melotte 25, Collinder 50
- Date/Time: 2011 Feb 25 at 04:56 UTC
- Location: Bifrost Astronomical Observatory, Portal, AZ
- Telescope: Nikkor 105mm F/2.8 Lens
- Mount: Astro-Physics 1200GTO
- Camera: Nikon D300
- Exposure: 2 x 300s, f/2.8, ISO 800
- File Name: Hyades-01w.jpg
- Processing: Stack of 2 Images, Cropping, Levels, Unsharp Mask (Photoshop CS5)
- Original Image Size: 2848 x 4288 pixels (12.2 MP); 9.5" x 14.3" @ 300 dpi
- Rights: Copyright 2011 by Fred Espenak. All Rights Reserved. See: Image Licensing.