Moon, Aldebaran, Capella and The Pleiades Jan. 09. 2017
Tonight look for the waxing gibbous moon passes near the bright reddish star, Aldebaran. You can also see the very bright star Capella and The Pleiades star cluster on the sky’s dome.
EarthSky
Compare the size of Aldebaran with our sun. Image via Wikipedia
Aldebaran, designated Alpha Tauri (α Tauri, abbreviated Alpha Tau, α Tau), is an orange giant star located about 65 light years from the Sun in the zodiac constellation of Taurus.
It is the brightest star in its constellation and usually the fourteenth-brightest star in the nighttime sky, though it varies slowly in brightness between magnitude 0.75 and 0.95. It is likely that Aldebaran hosts a planet several times the size of Jupiter.
The planetary exploration probe Pioneer 10 is currently heading in the general direction of the star and should make its closest approach in about two million years.
Double star system Capella. Image Credit: Atlas of the Universe
Capella, also designated Alpha Aurigae (α Aurigae, abbreviated Alpha Aur, α Aur), is the brightest star in the constellation of Auriga; the sixth-brightest in the night sky and the third-brightest in the northern celestial hemisphere, after Arcturus and Vega.
Although it appears to be a single star to the naked eye, it is actually a star system of four stars in two binary pairs. The first pair consists of two bright, type-G giant stars, designated Capella Aa and Capella Ab, in a very tight circular orbit some 0.76 AU apart and a derived orbital period of 104 days.
Clip credit: ESA'HUBBLE
In astronomy, the Pleiades (/ˈplaɪədiːz/ or /ˈpliːədiːz/), or Seven Sisters (Messier 45 or M45), is an open star cluster containing middle-aged, hot B-type stars located in the constellation of Taurus. It is among the nearest star clusters to Earth and is the cluster most obvious to the naked eye in the night sky. The celestial entity has several meanings in different cultures and traditions.
The cluster is dominated by hot blue and extremely luminous stars that have formed within the last 100 million years.
