Re: Why Seven Pleiades?


<tony_flanders@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1123761406.984340.154790@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> Most people will agree that the Pleiades are basically
> a 6-star group, regardless of whether they see a few
> fainter stars flitting around the fundamental pattern.
> The 6 brightest stars range quite evenly from mag 2.8
> to mag 4.3, and they're arranged in a strikingly
> symmetric pattern. The 7th-brightest star, 28 Tau
> a.k.a. Pleione, is mag 5.1 -- a huge jump -- and its
> additionally hard to see because it's so close to
> 27 Tau (Atlas). The 8th and 9th are mag 5.5, which
> doesn't count as prominent even in pristine skies.

Possibly, you're over-thinking this?

My personal observations are in complete agreement with the link that John
Steinberg listed:

http://www.ras.ucalgary.ca/~gibson/pleiades/pleiades_see.html

Counting the panes from left to right and top to bottom, my skies and
observations represent pane 6 and 7, where clearly there are 6 easy stars,
and a 7th (16-Tau) that is harder, but not at all impossible to detect as a
separate member of the group (as I indicated in an earlier response).

The others that would seem most likely to be separate members based on
telescopic views, Pleione and Asterope 2, are too close to be "obvious" and
separate from their immediate visual peers, despite their greater individual
magnitudes.

I also think that in pane 7 it is interesting to note that stars 8 and 9 (in
that pane)are not "tight" neighbors. I don't know off hand what designations
these stars carry in Taurus, but it sure looks plausible to me that these
two stars might be the "real" Pleione and Atlas, if their true identity has
ever been in doubt.

Be that as it may, I see 7 stars when I make an effort under NELM mag 5.5+
transparency, and 6 stars when I just look up under almost any other local
conditions. I don't see that other cultures calling it 7 is a huge mystery,
or that it likely has anything to do with anything other than experienced
observation.

On the other hand, that they decided to include 16-Tau as a 7th member based
on it's being the "next" visible star, does not preclude the possibility of
it's inclusion based on a predisposition to make any pattern conform to a
value of seven.

But, it's not like there aren't seven separate stars in the main asterism to
work with given mag 5.5 skies. The bigger mistery is 8 and 9. Which ones are
they really?

My nickel,
Stephen Paul



.

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