Pleiades And Thank You

Thanks to a nearly clear sky around 8:45 PM, Wednesday, March 2, 2011, the star cluster Pleiades ("The Seven Sisters," left center) shown brightly in the WSW sky. Other prominent constellations shown in this picture is Taurus ("V"-shape, upper left), sporting its bright 0.84 magnitude star Aldebaran; and Perseus above the tree at right. The hot blur star cluster Pleiades, which actually contains hundreds of stars, resides about 425 light years from Earth. The seven most observable stars range in apparent magnitude from 2.84 to 5.43. This image was captured at Bowman Woods Park in Cedar Rapids, Iowa and was a 46-second exposure shot at f/3.5 with an ISO rating of 320.