Partiview and the Pleiades

Use the 3D visualization program Partiview to study the Pleiades. On our systems you can start Partiview with the Milkyway database using the command partiview_mw. We will provide separate instructions on how to run the program.

Locate the Pleiades in Taurus, and navigate space until you are within the cluster.

1. Identify the five brightest stars in the cluster by name, and find their absolute magnitudes.
2. Which of these is most distant, and which is farthest from us?
3. What is a representative depth to the cluster along the line of sight? Is it roughly spherical, or does it seem to be elongated in any particular direction?
4. What would be the effect of a spread in distances on the observed color-magnitude diagram? Is there any evidence for that in the data on your plots?