Each autumn I give myself an eye test that no optometrist would sign off on. I step outside, find the Pleiades and start counting. One through five come easily. After that, every faint candidate becomes an argument. Is that a real point of light, or am I seeing what I expect because I know the cluster is there? I look away, look back and start over.
It doesn't measure eye health. It measures how little I've prepared for the night sky.
The Pleiades sit roughly 444 light-years away in Taurus, and they're well placed in the evening sky right now. No telescope required, and no binoculars either. You'll probably catch their soft glow in your peripheral vision the next time you step outside and look up.
Yet every November they show me that naked-eye observing isn't just opening the back door. The number I can pick out shifts with what I do in the ten minutes before I look.
What you're actually looking at
The Pleiades, also called Messier 45 (M45) or the "Seven Sisters," form an open star cluster in Taurus. They rank among the closest clusters to the solar system, and their brightest members are some of the youngest stars visible without optics, roughly 100 million years old. Newborns, by astronomical standards.
Mid-November is a good time to get acquainted. They clear the eastern horizon early in the evening and climb as the night wears on. Look east after dark for a small, tight clump. If you already know Orion, which rises later, the Pleiades sit above and to its right from mid-northern latitudes. Orange Aldebaran is nearby, along with the broader, V-shaped Hyades. The Hyades are closer to the Sun, yet their stars are about 625 million years old.
The "Seven Sisters" name sets a trap. Most people expect seven stars. Under reasonably dark skies, six is the typical naked-eye count, and the six brightest form a miniature Big Dipper (or Plough, in British usage). Keen eyes under darker skies can pick out more. The cluster holds around 1,000 stars in total. How many you see depends on your eyesight, sky brightness, the atmosphere, and how well your eyes have adjusted to the dark.
That's why M45 interests me more than a tick-box target. Tonight, don't just find the Pleiades. Count them.
My three-stage test
I run the test in stages. First I step outside and count right away, sticking only to stars I can separate without arguing with myself over the faint ones. Then I wait ten minutes, keeping my phone and bright outdoor lights out of the picture, and count again. Full dark adaptation takes much longer, but ten minutes makes a visible difference if you've just come from a lit-up house.
Next come my 10x50 binoculars, and that's where the experiment stops being subtle. The little knot of light becomes a field of stars. It doesn't just get brighter. Its character changes, because stars below my naked-eye threshold appear. I also use averted vision, looking slightly to one side of M45 rather than straight at it. The fainter stars seem to pop into view as the light-sensitive periphery of the retina takes over. It's one of the best demonstrations of the effect I know.
This week's sky: November 13-19, 2026
The Moon is back in the evening sky, growing from a thin crescent toward first quarter around Nov. 17. Moonlight strengthens through the first half of the night, so plan any faint-object work around it. Look southwest during twilight for a crescent showing Earthshine, the faint glow of sunlight bounced off Earth onto the Moon's night side.
On the night of Nov. 15-16, Mars and Jupiter pair up in conjunction, just over a degree apart. They rise in the east during the evening and climb high into the southern sky before sunrise.
The Leonid meteor shower peaks Nov. 17-18, and this one rewards staying up. Leo, the constellation holding the radiant, rises late. The best window opens after midnight and runs toward predawn.
An asterism worth finding: The Kids
Auriga, the Charioteer, is easy to pick out in the northeastern and eastern sky on November evenings. Look closer, though, and you'll find a small asterism beside its brightest star, Capella. Capella earned the nickname "Goat Star," and its Latin name is a diminutive of capra, meaning "little she-goat." The reason is mythological: Capella stands for Amalthea, the goat said to have nursed the infant Zeus. Nearby, a triangle of faint stars called The Kids, Epsilon, Zeta and Eta Aurigae, is traditionally imagined as Capella's offspring. Once you spot them, the whole constellation becomes easier to read.