Back in 2013, I worked this beautiful and most beloved among amateurs astronomers theme. Then I had some serious problems, due to insufficient equipment and to lesser processing knowledge. So this year I decided to work once again with this theme. I do it and the result was a reward for me. Hope you enjoy this result too…

   The best known and most beautiful open cluster, the closest to our earth, is about 430 light years from us. It belongs to the constellation Taurus. With a visual luminosity of 1.50 and apparent size of 2 degrees in the sky. Visible to the naked eye. It contains about 1,000 confirmed members, aged only 100 millions of years, but only 6-9 are visible to the naked eye,in a similar formation to that of the Big Dipper, but to a much smaller size (see photo below). The core of the cluster has a radius of 8 light years. Just 4 degrees from elliptical results to passings of pleiades near our moon and the other planets and sometimes eclipses take place in these stars (when planets of our solar system passing from), These events are extremely popular between amateur astronomers, without even the requirement of expensive equipment for observing these phenomena. It seems that the cluster will disperse after 250 million years because of gravitational forces of nearby galaxy. Along with the icluster, there is a interstellar material and dust, that moves to another direction (away from the flock with speed 11 km / sec). Since the stars in the cloud are extremely bright, illuminating this material and creating reflection nebula. The most famous is the Merope nebula, but corresponding reflection nebulae are formed and around Maia, Alcyone, Electra, and the Celaeno Taygeti. visible in long-exposure photos (as that is stated above) 

Technical data of the upper photo :

Lum 30x300s

RGB 19x300s, bin1 each

Mount  : AP GTO

Camera  : QSI 683

Telescope  : Takahashi FSQ 106

Frames are aquired in Skyros Island, Greece, November 2015.

Mythology

Along with pleiades, in Taurus belongs the stellar cluster of Hyades too. For this reason we will refer to mythological elements, together with those of the Pleiades, for Hyades too . 

Pleiades 

The seven daughters of Atlas and Pleione (another name was Aethra, belonging in Okeanides). Born at term Kyllini of Arcadia (Mount Zireia currently, belongs to the prefecture of Korinthia, is one of the places I was aquiring these photos!) and their names are: Maia, Alcyone, Merope, Celaeno, Electra, Steropi and Taygeti. All of them except Merope married gods. So Merope, due to the myth, is hiding from her shame for this reason. Merope married with Sisyphus, Glaucus were theirs sun. In another myth, Electra is the one who is hiding, the mother of Dardanus, ancestor of the Trojans. She is hiding by regret for the fall of Troy. The Maia and Taygeti had children with Jupiter (Mercury the son of the first, and Lacedaemon the son of the second). Celaeno makes with Neptune the Lycos (wolf) and the Alcyon makes Yrea and Yperinora. All of them were sisters with the Hyades.

When Pleiades are rising (in the middle of May in these anchient years) herald the ripening of the grain and the approach of the harvest. When they sets (November) are leading the way of plowing and sowing, with the beginning of the rains. Connected with rural life and imagination of farmers gave birth to a number of those myths. Zeus sent them from pity to heavens, either because they were inconsolable for the death of their brothers Hyades, or for the misfortune of their father Atlas. In (Boeotian) myth, the mother Plioni with her ​​daughters because chased by Orion (either because he had fallen in love with their mother Plioni either because they belonged to the company of Godness Artemis wanting to join sex with them). These desperate begged Zeus to help. In order to relieve them from the chase and attacks of the giant hunter, Zeus took them all with the pursuer in the sky as stars. The name (peleiades-pleiades-pigeons) gave basis to the myth of metamorphosis in doves. The Maia, the largest and most beautiful, gave to Zeus the sleeker son, Hermes, in a cave of Mount Kyllinis in Arcadia. To Electra and Steropi, attached the glow of the plurality of spring sunrise, while to Alcyone and Celaeno as mistresses of Neptune, attributed the rains and storms, which in turn caused the darkening sea in the autumn sunset. Taygeti (Laconic and Theban legend) was the mother of the king of Lacedaemon by union with Zeus. Finally, Merope, rarely visible, was the wife of Sisyphus and mother of Glaucus.

In another myth, the Pleiades were the daughters of the queen of the Amazons. Their names in this myth were: Maia, Protis, Glaucia Kokkymo, Parthenia, Stonychia and Lambado.

Hyades

Like the Pleiades, they were the daughters of Atlas with the Plione Aethra. Theirs name is related to the showers (rains), where etymologically linked (yein=rains) which coincide with the time of sunrise and the sunset. In the sky are Gotness of rain, but in the earth they are nymphs associated with the fertilizing moisture. Nymphs were and those who are brought up Zeus (or by another myth) Dionysus  to Mount Nysa (in this legend, their name derives from the name of Dionysus=Yis). When the young god in chased in Thrake by the King Lycurgus, they brought the child to Thebes to deliver into the hands of Ino. Jupiter or to the spot that saved the child, either because the pitied, gave them a prominent position in the sky. 

In later legend, the Pleiades and the Hyades were the daughters of Zeus and Athiras. They had a brother named Ya. He was killed in the hunt of a snake bite. The sisters then remained inconsolable. Zeus took pity of them, and send them in the sky.