M45, the Pleiades

The Pleiades, aka The Seven Sisters, Messier 45 and other names by different cultures, is the closest Messier object to Earth at 444 light-years distant, the most obvious cluster to the naked eye in the night sky in the north-west of the constellation Taurus. The cluster is dominated by hot blue luminous B-type stars formed within the last 100 million years. Reflection nebulae around the brightest stars were thought to be left over material from their formation, but are now regarded as an unrelated dust cloud in the interstellar medium through which the stars are currently passing. Personally I rather liek how it's not just about the obvious 9 or so brightest stars but also there appear to be little chains of other stars (both bright blue and a few cooler red stars) draped amongst them. Skywatcher 80ED, QHY268C, simple UV/IR filter. An HDR composite of 54*180s plus 60*60s subs for a total integration time of 222 minutes or 3.7 hours.

Image dimensions: 6000 x 3749 pixels