The Pleiades tonight: how to find the Seven Sisters
The Pleiades are the little dipper-shaped knot of blue-white stars that people all over the world have named, from the Seven Sisters of Greek myth to Subaru in Japan. Most people see six or seven stars; binoculars show dozens. Below is where they are tonight, computed for your location.
Tonight from where you are
Working it out for your time zone…
Computed in your browser.
The Pleiades tonight from four cities
| City | Tonight |
|---|---|
| New York | 6:06 pm to 5:26 am; best 12:36 am, 73° up in the south |
| Los Angeles | 6:20 pm to 5:20 am; best 12:30 am, 80° up in the south |
| London | 5:49 pm to 5:49 am; best 12:39 am, 63° up in the south |
| Sydney | 9:48 pm to 4:38 am; best 1:28 am, 32° up in the north |
Local times for the night of November 7, 2026, counted as “up” when at least 10° above the horizon after dark. Computed with Astronomy Engine when this page was built; it refreshes every hour.
At a glance
- In the constellation
- Taurus
- High in the evening (9 pm)
- November to March from mid-northern latitudes; January from mid-southern latitudes
The Pleiades: the facts
| Also called | M45, the Seven Sisters, Subaru [1] |
|---|---|
| Distance | about 445 light-years [1] |
| Age | about 100 million years, young for stars [1] |
| Brightness | magnitude 1.6 for the whole cluster [2] |
How do you find the Pleiades?
Follow Orion's belt up and to the right (in the Northern Hemisphere) past the orange star Aldebaran, and keep going about as far again: the small, tight cluster you reach is the Pleiades. In the evening they're best from about October to March in the north. From the Southern Hemisphere they appear lower in the north, upside down.
They're one of the few things that look better in binoculars than in a telescope: binoculars frame the whole cluster, while a telescope shows only part of it at a time.
What is the blue haze round the Pleiades?
A cloud of interstellar dust that the cluster happens to be passing through. The dust reflects the blue light of the hot young stars, so it's a reflection nebula. It isn't left over from the stars' birth: the cluster and the cloud are moving at different speeds and just meeting. It shows only in photographs; to the eye the stars look clean.
How far away are the Pleiades, really?
About 440 light-years, and getting that number right took a while. In 1997 the Hipparcos satellite put the cluster at about 390, which would have meant its stars were oddly faint. Radio astronomers (2014) and the Gaia satellite (2018) settled it at 136 parsecs, about 443 light-years, in line with older estimates from the stars' brightness.
Can you see the Pleiades in Everdust?
In Everdust's Night Sky on Apple Vision Pro, look at the Pleiades and pinch to fly there: you arrive among the cluster's stars, with the blue nebula round them and their slow drift sped up. On iPhone, iPad and Android, tap the Pleiades in Night Sky to fly there.
Everdust is free on the App Store for Apple Vision Pro, iPhone and iPad, and on Google Play for Android. I make Everdust, so weigh that; a phone star map such as Stellarium or Sky Guide will find the Pleiades just as well.
Questions people ask
Can I see the Pleiades tonight? The Pleiades is up from about 6:06 pm to 5:26 am, highest at about 12:36 am, 73° up in the south. That's for New York on the night of November 7, 2026; this page works it out for your own location too.
When is the best time of year to see the Pleiades? From mid-northern latitudes (New York, London) it's high in the evening sky from November to March. From mid-southern latitudes (Sydney) it's high in the evening from January.
How many stars are in the Pleiades? Most people see six or seven with their eyes and binoculars show dozens; the cluster holds far more than that, most of them too faint to see without a telescope.
Why are the Pleiades called the Seven Sisters? In Greek myth they were the seven daughters of Atlas and Pleione. Many cultures have their own stories for the cluster; in Japan it's Subaru, which is the car maker's logo.
Are the Pleiades a constellation? No. They're an open star cluster inside the constellation Taurus, the bull: a family of stars born together about 100 million years ago.
Sources
- NASA Hubble: Messier 45 (the Pleiades)
- SEDS Messier catalog: Messier 45
- Melis et al. 2014, A VLBI resolution of the Pleiades distance controversy, Science 345, 1029
- Gaia Collaboration 2018, Observational Hertzsprung-Russell diagrams, Astronomy & Astrophysics 616, A10
Positions, rise and set times, brightness, phases and distances on this page are computed with Astronomy Engine (Don Cross, MIT license), accurate to about an arcminute.