The Hyades Star Cluster

After seeing such a brilliant star picture of the Milky Way from Draco I was inspired to have another crack at astro photography once I looked outside after tea and saw that the sky was clear and the stars were twinkling.

I got myself well insulated as it was pretty nippy and nipped over to the local park and got myself set up. I saw Orion with Jupiter (I think) to the west of it, and further away and more overhead (I've now sussed out how to tilt the camera further back on the tripod) I saw the Hyades Star Cluster which is the group of stars roughly in the centre of the picture in the tilted ? shape. My star book says that it is one of the closest open star clusters to the earth. There are about 200 stars in the cluster with 12 being visible to the naked eye. The stars are in the central part of Taurus.

The evening's stargazing soon came to an end as mist soon started to form and the temperature dropped again, so I retreated home.

Well I'm now off to get a Hot Chocolate and then watch the first episode of Winterwatch on BBC2.