Monday 8th to Sunday 14th September 2025
We will have had a Full Moon on Sunday 7th, so if you pop outside around
I wouldn't bother bringing your telescope outside as, being so close to a Full Moon, the light pollution from it makes for poor viewing of those elusive faint deep sky objects.
One deep sky object that is always easy to spot though is the Pleiades open cluster of stars, also known as M45 in the Charles Messier catalogue and often called the "Seven Sisters" because of the seven prominent stars that can be seen with the naked eye.
If you look towards the east north east at
The Pleiades is the closest Messier object to us and is only 440 light years away. The bright blue stars that you see are relatively young and it is estimated that the cluster formed about 100 million years ago. If you are looking at them, remember that you will be seeing the stars how they were 440 years ago, as the light from them has taken that long to reach us, travelling at the speed of light, which is 186,000 miles per second!
The stars are gradually drifting apart and in around 250 million years, the group will no longer be classed as a cluster, rather individual stars.
www.starsoversomerset.com
Screenshots courtesy of Stellarium
Copyright Adrian Dening and Radio Ninesprings 2025
Winter Coat Scheme
Recycling
Ilminster Local Plan
Hate Crime
False Fire Alarms
Dog DNA
