Pleiades (M45) Observation Details
M45 Daily Motion
M45 will rise at 14:45, reaching 38° when twilight begins at 18:15. It will reach transit at 74° by 22:13 and will set before twilight ends at 05:41.M45 will be visible until April, 7, when it will move too close to the Sun. During this time, its proximity to the Sun will cause it to disappear from the night sky, making it unobservable for a while.
M45 Visibility Timetable on December 21
Rise and Set Timetable
| Time | Elevation | |
| M45 rise | 14:45 | |
| Sunset | 17:08 | 26° |
| Civil sunset | 17:40 | 32° |
| Astrosession begin | 18:48 | 44° |
| M45 transit | 22:13 | 74° |
| Moon Rise, 57% illuminated | 23:50 | 64° |
| M45 set | 05:41 | |
| Astrosession end | 06:13 | -5° |
| Moon Set | 12:24 | -19° |
Track M45 Position Throughout the Night
← Sat, 21 December 2024 →
| Time | |
| Altitude | |
| Azimuth |
M45 - Pleiades
The Pleiades (M45), also known as the Seven Sisters, is an open cluster located in the constellation Taurus. It has been known since antiquity and was later cataloged by Charles Messier in 1771. M45 is one of the nearest open clusters to Earth and contains a bright population of stars.
M45 spans about 17.5 light-years across and contains over 1,000 stars. The cluster is approximately 444 light-years away from Earth and has an apparent magnitude of 1.6, making it visible to the naked eye under most skies.
M45 Image Gallery
DSS Blue
DSS Red
DSS Near-Infrared
DSS Composite image
The photos are taken from the Digitized Sky Survey 2 (DSS2), which was produced at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) under NASA contract, using data from the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), the European Southern Observatory (ESO), and the National Geographic Society-Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS II).
Special thanks to the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO), the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, and the California Institute of Technology for their significant contributions.
Finder Chart for M45
| Object name | M45 |
| Field of view | |
| Limiting magnitude | |
| M45 coordinates | 3.76378, 24.36786 |
| Center coordinates | 3.76378, 24.36786 |
M45 Passage Through Night
Current position of M45
| Time | 11:34 |
| Latitude | 39.9625 |
| Longitude | -83.0061 |
| M45 elevation | -23° |
| M45 Azimuth | -20° |
Annual motion of M45
| Date | Sun, 22 December 2024 |
| Twighlight start | 18:44 |
| Twighlight end | 06:07 |
| Twighlight duration | 11h 23m |
| Rise | 14:41 |
| Set | 05:37 |
| Elevation at transit | 74° |
| Transit time | 22:09 |
| Equatorial coordinate | RA: 03h 45m 49s", Dec: 24° 22' 04s |
| Magnitude | - |
| Constellation | Taurus |
The graph is structured with the vertical axis showing the hours of the day, ranging from 12 AM to 12 AM the next day, while the horizontal axis spans each day of the year.
The reddish shaded area indicates the periods when the M45 is above the horizon, visible to observers. The white line marks the times when the celestial object reaches its highest point in the sky each day, known as the transit.
Data Credits
The nebulae information on this page is sourced from the OpenNGC project, developed by Matteo Verga. OpenNGC provides detailed data on the NGC catalog, which is a valuable resource for exploring deep-sky objects such as nebulae.
For more details or to contribute to OpenNGC, visit the official GitHub repository: OpenNGC on GitHub.