Photo of the Day: April 29, 2009

DCist's resident astrophotographer, philliefan99, is up to the task during the planet-filled sky we'll have for the next month. Though a little hazy through the city-lights and setting sun (you may need to dust your monitor off), he captured here the crescent moon, under which sits the Pleiades, or Seven Sisters, a star cluster located in the constellation Taurus. In Greek mythology, the Pleiades are the seven daughters of Atlas, and the nine brightest stars are named after the sisters and their parents. Over 1,000 stars actually sit in the cluster, and the entire thing is currently passing through a dusty nebula, making it a great observational teaching tool (it looks much cooler the more you can see, even with just a set of binoculars).

The brighter dot towards the bottom of the photo is, of course, Mercury, which can only be seen in the sky, just after twilight, for about another week. Read the rest of the Post article for space-tastic activities through May, including a meet-the-astronauts day at the Air and Space Museum this Saturday.