The Pleiades open star cluster (M45; mag 1.3) in Taurus will be well placed in the evening sky in coming weeks. On 18 November it will reach its highest point in the sky at around midnight local time, and on subsequent evenings it will culminate four minutes earlier each day.
From Cambridge , it is visible in the morning sky, becoming accessible around 17:19, when it reaches an altitude of 12° above your eastern horizon. It will then reach its highest point in the sky at 23:39, 71° above your southern horizon. It will be lost to dawn twilight around 05:51, 14° above your western horizon.
At a declination of 24°06'N, it is easiest to see from the northern hemisphere but cannot be seen from latitudes much south of 45°S.
At magnitude 1.3, M45 is visible to the naked eye, but best viewed through a pair of binoculars.
The position of M45 is as follows:
| Object | Right Ascension | Declination | Constellation | Magnitude | Angular Size |
| M45 | 03h47m30s | 24°06'N | Taurus | 1.3 | 110'00" |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.
The sky on 18 Nov 2018
| The sky on 18 November 2018 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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85% 11 days old |
All times shown in EST.
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Source
The circumstances of this event were computed using the DE430 planetary ephemeris published by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
This event was automatically generated by searching the ephemeris for planetary alignments which are of interest to amateur astronomers, and the text above was generated based on an estimate of your location.
Image credit
© Digitised Sky Survey (DSS); Second Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS-II)