But also a bit of an optical illusion.
Messier Object M45, or as is commonly known, the Pleiades, aka "The Seven Sisters," one of the most famous star clusters visible to the unaided eye in the night sky and now prominently visible after dark, presents itself as a compact grouping of stars surrounded by the wisps of gas and dust leftover from the stars' creation. From all the earth-bound photos, one would assume that the cluster is physically compact and these stars are very close together.
But that assumption would be wrong. Thanks to the wonders of Celestia, an entirely new view of the cluster can be seen, exposing the true relationship of the stars in the group.
Not only are the seven main stars in the cluster further apart from each other than the Earth is to its nearest neighbor Proxima Centauri, on average, adjacent stars are as far apart as the Sun is from Sirius, and the distance from the star closest to earth and the one farthest away is nearly 40 light years.
While a night sky on a planet orbiting any of the stars in the cluster would still be wondrous compared to a night sky on Earth because the stars of the Pleiades are young, hot, and burn with a blue-white intensity, it wouldn't be as bright and filled with glittering jewels as you would think. The other main stars in the group would appear anywhere from the brightness of Sirius to about twice the intensity of Venus in Earth's sky. Bright, yes, but perhaps not as awe-inspiring as you'd expect based on the photos from Earth.
That being said, I certainly wouldn't turn down an invite to visit…