Photo of the Week for March 4, 2016

The Pleiades cluster in Taurus is one of the most striking binocular sights in the night sky. An evocative description of these lovely, blue-white stars comes to us from Victorian poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson, who said they “glitter like a swarm of fireflies tangled in a silver braid.” That impression of the Pleiades is nicely captured in this wide-field photo by Richard Sewards.

Richard photographed the cluster from Johnston Harbour Provincial Park, on the Bruce Peninsula in southern Ontario, with a Nikon D7000 DSLR camera and 180mm lens set to f/4. The final image consists of twelve 3-minute exposures at ISO1600, digitally combined.