The Pleiades (M45, Melotte 22) is one of the nearest and most recognisable open clusters in the sky, set in the constellation Taurus. It lies about 440 light‑years from Earth and is around 100 million years old. The cluster spans roughly two degrees on the sky — four times the apparent diameter of the Moon — and is dominated by hot, blue B‑type stars. Long exposures reveal extensive blue reflection nebulosity: interstellar dust grains scattering starlight. This dust is thought to be unrelated to the cluster’s birth cloud; instead, the Pleiades are currently passing through a filament of the Taurus molecular complex.

Visible to the naked eye even from suburban locations, the Pleiades are a rewarding target for binoculars and short‑focal‑length telescopes. Dozens of members are resolved in 10×50 binoculars, while wide‑field imaging captures the tangle of faint dust around the brightest stars. The best season in the northern hemisphere runs from late autumn through winter, when Taurus climbs high in the evening sky.

In deep images two named reflection nebulae stand out: NGC 1435 (the Merope Nebula) with its tapered “fan” of dust, and NGC 1432 around Maia. The cluster’s brightest star, Alcyone, anchors the central asterism commonly nicknamed the “Seven Sisters”, a motif present in many cultures since antiquity.