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these December nights. The Pleiades star cluster is also called the Seven Sisters. It is one of the most noticeable sights in the sky, easily recognizable when the moon moves out of the way.
• Try looking at the Pleiades in a moonless sky in a week week or two. To the average human eye under good conditions, six or seven stars of this cluster are visible. That's the reason for the common name Seven Sisters. But a small telescope or a good pair of binoculars reveals several dozen stars here, and in fact there are several hundred members of this cluster known to the great telescopes of professional astronomers.
• The Pleiades marks the shoulder of the Bull in the constellation Taurus. This compact grouping of stars seen on our sky's dome is an actual star cluster. The stars of the Pleiades were born from a single cloud of gas and dust, and they still move together through space.
• Taurus? Here's your constellation
• The Pleiades stars are relatively young, as stars go, and quite hot, as evidenced by their bluish color. You also will note a fuzziness around and between these stars, which is due to reflection off particles in a cloud of dust through which the cluster is passing.
• You might find it interesting that there is evidence (in the composition of the sun), that our life-giving star started out in a cluster, perhaps similar to the Pleiades. If so, over time, our sun's brother stars would have dispersed through our region of the galaxy.
• Bottom line: The bright planet near the moon on December 24, 2012 is the planet Jupiter. The tiny, misty-looking, dipper-shaped Pleiades star cluster is also nearby. Many have seen lunar halos these past several nights in the U.S. Watch outside tonight for a beautiful sky!
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