Finding The Pleiades is easy in a clear dark sky from autumn to spring. Start from Orion's belt, look up and right via the bright star Aldebaran and keep looking up and to the right. You should be able to make out at least six stars with the naked eye (but best seen with binoculars).

The cluster contains more than 500 stars in all. Below is a rough map of the nine most visible. Asterope (often called Sterope) is a 'double' star. The Seven Sisters are the stars to the right - Alcyone, Merope, Electra, Maia, Celaeno, Taygeta and Asterope. Atlas and Pleione are the sisters' father and mother respectively.



There have been some outstanding deep space photographs taken of The Pleiades. Here is perhaps the pick of the bunch, taken by the UK Schmidt telescope and enhanced by David Malin. Please respect the copyright of the Royal Observatory Edinburgh and the Anglo-Australian Observatory.

Click on the thumbnail to the left to see the full-size version (68k). Light from the stars relected off the dust surrounding the cluster produces the impressive blue effect.