Midnight in late autumn, you can appreciate constellations of winter at eastern sky. You'll pay attention a group of several stars gathering cozy and a "V" shaped asterism a bit looser. They are open clusters of the Pleiades and the Hyades respectively, and the cluster of Hyades forms the face of Bull, the Taurus. The Hyades includes a bright and reddish star of Aldebaran that looks like bull's eye being bloodshot. The constellation shows mainly the horns of bull, The southern horn starts from Hyades and extends to zeta Tauri, and another one of north lifts up just north of the Hyades, through to beta Tauri, that is part of Auriga. The rest of the bull is rather faint, a slight body and two spindle legs.
Myth
The Greek deity Zeus lusted after the beautiful maiden Europa, the daughter of Telephassa and Agenor (the king of Phoenicia). One morning, she and other maidens went to pick flowers in the meadow by the sea. Zeus wanted her so badly, he disguised himself as a beautiful, innocent looking white bull, and roamed the meadow where the women lingered. Europa soon noticed Bull's presence and approached him. She admired his beauty and gentleness, and on a whim mounted him. Zeus, the Bull, leaped up and carried her over 600 miles across the water to the Island of Crete in the Mediterranean Sea. There she became the mother of King Minos of Crete, King Rhadamanthus of the Cyclades Islands, and Prince Sarpedon of Lycia. Another story about Taurus involves the seven daughters of Atlas, or in other versions, Pleione. The great hunter Orion took more than a passing interest in them. Atlas felt a rather old fashioned concern for his daughters, and asked Zeus to protect them. Zeus transformed the seven sisters into doves and placed them in the sky. When Orion followed them, Zeus placed a large bull between him and the seven new stars.
Nebula's In Taurus
M1, The Crab Nebula
M1, The Crab Nebula is positioned just Northwest of zeta Tauri, with a size of about 6 arc minutes. The nebula has lots of stripes spreading outward visible with larger telescopes, this figure gives the name. The distance is about 7200 light years. The Crab Nebula is a remnant of a supernova, exploded in July 1054. Chinese and Japanese astronomers(?) recorded this event in the ancient literary works. The exploded star, that produced the nebula, brightened up with the visual magnitude of about -5, bright enough to be seen in the daytime for nearly a month. Now, astronomers have discovered a neutron star, an optical pulsar in the center of the nebula.
NGC1514
A planetary nebula lying near a boundary on Taurus is NGC1514. You will be able to find out the nebula to trace about 8 degrees northeast from the Pleiades. The nebula has a diameter of about 2 arc minutes, high-powered view of telescopes shows you a bright central star and very dimmed nebulosity spread out on the outskirts. The dimmed gaseous matter exposes films in greenish color, suggesting the matter is emitting light from ionized oxygen atoms. The central star still looks bright; it's considered that the planetary nebula just starts to release gas, fairly newly nebula formed from a dead star. The gaseous region will spread out increasingly within several ten thousand years, and evolve into a splendid planetary nebula like the Ring Nebula (M57) or Dumb-bell Nebula (M27).
NGC1435
The Pleiades has been covered by bluish reflection nebula. Especially there is a bright part around Melope, a southern star of Pleiades, called "The Melope Nebula". And the nebula has an ID number of NGC1435. The nebula has a span of about 30 arc minutes in north-south direction, and has stripe structures looks like being sweeped with paintbrush. The nebula is particularly striking around Melope, you can appreciate it with your own naked eyes aided with binoculars or small scopes under good-conditioned night sky.
Ghostly Reflections in the Pleiades
Wispy tendrils of a dark interstellar cloud being destroyed by the passage of one of the brightest stars in the Pleiades star cluster. Like a flashlight beam shining off the wall of a cave, the star is reflecting light off the surface of pitch black clouds of cold gas laced with dust. These are called reflection nebulae.
The famous cluster is easily visible in the evening sky during the winter months as a small grouping of bright blue stars, named after the "Seven Sisters" of Greek mythology. Resembling a small dipper, this star cluster lies in the constellation Taurus at a distance of about 380 light-years from Earth. The unaided eye can discern about half a dozen bright stars in the cluster, but a small telescope will reveal that the Pleiades contains many hundreds of fainter stars.
Galaxies In Taurus
NGC 1410
This visible-light picture, taken by the Hubble telescope, reveals an intergalactic "pipeline" of material flowing between two battered galaxies that bumped into each other about 100 million years ago. The pipeline [the dark string of matter] begins in NGC 1410 [the galaxy at left], crosses over 20,000 light-years of intergalactic space, and wraps around NGC 1409 [the companion galaxy at right] like a ribbon around a package. The galaxies reside about 300 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Taurus.
Stars In Taurus
M45, The Pleiades
M45, The Pleiades is the most popular Open Cluster seen in the constellation of Taurus. We can see bright six or seven stars with naked eyes, and these seven go under the name "The Seven Sisters". The Pleiades is one of the closest star clusters with 410 light-years away, we can detect as a size of about 2 degrees. It has a huge size, so binoculars are suitable for appreciating this attractive object rather than telescopes. This cluster is visible easily, so it has various names from ancient times. For example, the cluster is called "Subaru" in Japan meaning of "bind" or "tie", this name can be found out in a Japanese ancient literary work, "Makurano-Soushi" in 10th century.
NGC1647
Two medium-sized open clusters lie between the horns of Taurus. NGC1647 is positioned about 5 degrees east of the Hyades. The cluster and the Hyades can be appreciated in the same view frame of binoculars. It's very easy to resolve individual stars in low magnification, you may get the impression that several fine stars are distributed sparse.
NGC1746
The cluster of NGC1746 can be found 5 degrees north east of NGC1647. The cluster looks spacer than NGC1647. Many of members are sufficiently bright, you can enjoy the full of stars blinking in the field of binoculars.
NGC1807
Around between Taurus and Orion, you can see two small open clusters lined up with an interval of 20 arc minutes. This couple is positioned at a bit south of the midway of Taurus's southern horn. The cluster at the right-hand side (west) is NGC1807,
NGC1817
And the other one is called NGC1817. Both clusters have apparent diameters of 16 arc minutes; they should be classified in small-sized group. But it'll be sufficiently worth seeing with binoculars that two pretty clusters are snuggled up just above the head of Orion.
Sh2-240
You can see a vast, but extraordinary faint supernova remnant of Sh2-240 (Simeis 147) between the constellations of Auriga and Taurus. The remnant has an apparent diameter of over 3 degrees, but this image has captured only southern part, actually the entirety of Sh2-240 is spread out beyond the field of this image. The Sh2-240 is a remnant of supernova that exploded about 200 thousand years ago, and the nebula is extending with a terrific speed yet. Of course we cannot detect the nebula with our naked eyes. It's one of features that the nebula has fine filament structures, looks like a very dimmed Veil nebula in Cygnus.
Barnard's 7.
We can detect the various shaped flows of dark nebulae in the winter's Milky Way by taking photographs. The dark nebula is mainly consists of the cold hydrogen gas and/or the dust floating in the inner-galaxy space. A noticeable vast dark nebula spreading around the constellation of Taurus and Auriga is named Barnard's 7. We can hardly recognize the existence of dark nebula until that conceals the background stars like a silhouette. The Milky Way in winter is much fainter than that in summer, so the dark nebulae in winter sky are fairy indistinct. Most of them are photographed, we can appreciate clearly in films.
The Hyades (Mel.25)
The Hyades is the one of the largest open clusters in skies, with a size of about 5 degrees. The cluster forms the Bull's face, shaped like a "V", consists of approximately 100 stars. You'll be able to enjoy the splendid view with binoculars. The Hyades is about 140 light years away, one of the closest clusters. The Aldebaran (alpha Tauri) is much closer (68 light years) than that, and has no relation with the cluster. There is a tiny open cluster of NGC1647 at the left-hand side, seemingly it seems like being sent forth from the Hyades.
Planetary Destination In Taurus
HD 37124 (G4 V)
Parent Star: HD 37124 (G4 V) in the constellation of Taurus is located at a distance of 107.63 Light Years from our Solar system. Co-ordinates are Right Ascension: 05 37 02.4864 & Declination: 20 43 50.836. The apparent Magnitude of the star is 7.685. The Inner Edge of Habitability Zone is 0.49 AU & the Outer Edge of Habitability Zone: 1.52 AU. Orbiting around HD 37124 are planets HD 37124 b, HD 37124 c, HD 37124 d.
HD 37124 b is believed to be a Sulfurous Cloud Jovian and its exitence has been confirmed. The Planets Appearance is Sulfur stained clouds of water or H2 SO4. The planet is positioned at inner edge of Habitability Zone at Mean Orbital Distance of 0.53 AU. The planet Orbits around the star every 152.46 ± 0.369 Days and was discovered by Marcy et al in 1999.
HD 37124 c is believed to be a water cloud jovian and its exitence has been confirmed. The Planets Appearance is white water ice clouds. The planet is positioned on the edge of Habitability Zone at Mean Orbital Distance of 1.64 AU. The planet Orbits around the star every 843.6 Days and was discovered by Butler et al. on 13 Jun 2002.
HD 37124 d is believed to be a ammonia cloud jovian and its exitence has been confirmed. The Planets Appearance is White ammonia and water ice clouds, brown hydrocarbon stains. The planet is positioned out side of Habitability Zone at Mean Orbital Distance of 3.19 AU. The planet Orbits around the star every 2295 Days and was discovered by VOGT S., BUTLER P., MARCY G., FISCHER D., HENRY G., LAUGHLIN G., WRIGHT J. & JOHNSON A. in 2005. HD 37124 PLanetary System
Some people say that TMR-1C is a planet and some have said that is not. Well i say. Obviously there is something out there. So here's the interstellar card if you want to know the truth.
Located in the sky within a star-forming region in the constellation Taurus, the object, called TMR-1C, appears to lie at the end of a strange filament of light that suggests it has apparently been flung away from the vicinity of a newly forming pair of binary stars.
At a distance of 450 light-years, the same distance as the newly formed stars, the candidate protoplanet would be ten thousand times less luminous than the Sun. If the object is a few hundred thousand years old, the same age as the newly formed star system which appears to have ejected it, then it is estimated to be 2-3 times the mass of Jupiter, the largest gas giant planet in our Solar System.
Also possible is that the object is up to ten million years old, the same age as other young stars nearby, in which case it may be a giant protoplanet or a brown dwarf star. A brown dwarf star is a small star that has failed to sustain nuclear fusion.
The candidate protoplanet is now 130 billion miles from the parent stars and predicted to be hurtling into interstellar space at speeds up to 20,000 miles per hour (10 kilometers/sec) — destined to forever drift among the Milky Way's starry population
Alpha Taurus / Aldebaran (K5 III)
Parent Star: alpha Taurus / Aldebaran (K5 III) in the constellation of Taurus is located at a distance of 73.4 Light Years from our Solar system Co-ordinates are Right Ascension: 04 35 55.24 & Declination: +16 30 33.5. The apparent Magnitude of the star is 0.86. The Inner Edge of Habitability Zone is 9.32 AU & the Outer Edge of Habitability Zone: 29.03 AU. Orbiting around Aldebaran is planet Aldebaran b is believed to be a Dark Hot Jupiter and its exitence is uncertain. The Planets Appearance is Dark sodium haze. The planet is positioned on the edge of Habitability Zone at Mean Orbital Distance of 1.35 AU. The planet Orbits around the star every 653.8 Days and was discovered by Hatzes et al in 1997.
HD 283750 (K2 V)
Parent Star: HD 283750 (K2 V) in the constellation of Taurus is located at a distance of 53.81 Light Years from our Solar system. Co-ordinates are Right Ascension: 04 36 47.5 & Declination: +27 08 00. The apparent Magnitude of the star is 8.42. The Inner Edge of Habitability Zone is 0.22 AU & the Outer Edge of Habitability Zone: 0.7 AU. Orbiting around HD 283750 is planet HD 283750 b is believed to be a brown dwarf and its exitence has been confirmed. The Planets Mass is 50 Jupiters. The planet is positioned out side of the Habitability Zone at Mean Orbital Distance of 0.025 AU. The planet Orbits around the star every 1.79 Days and was discovered by Mayor and Queloz in 1996.
