Editing Hyades (star cluster) (section)

== History ==
Together with the other eye-catching open star cluster of the [[Pleiades]], the Hyades form the [[Golden Gate of the Ecliptic]], which has been known for several thousand years.

In Greek mythology, the [[Hyades (mythology)|Hyades]] were the five daughters of [[Atlas (mythology)|Atlas]] and half-sisters to the [[Pleiades (Greek mythology)|Pleiades]]. After the death of their brother, Hyas, the weeping sisters were transformed into a cluster of stars that was afterwards associated with rain.<ref name="Ridpath">{{cite web 
  |url= http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/taurus.html#hyades
  |title= The Hyades – the face of the bull
  |author= [[Ian Ridpath]]
  |website= Ian Ridpath’s Star Tales
  |access-date=20 November 2023
}}</ref>

As a naked-eye object, the Hyades cluster has been known since prehistoric times. It is mentioned by numerous Classical authors from [[Homer]] to [[Ovid]].<ref name="seds">[http://messier.seds.org/xtra/ngc/hyades.html Information on the Hyades from SEDS]</ref> In Book 18 of the ''[[Iliad]]'' the stars of the Hyades appear along with the [[Pleiades]], [[Ursa Major]], and [[Orion (constellation)|Orion]] on the shield that the god [[Hephaestus|Hephaistos]] made for [[Achilles]].<ref name="Lattimore">Homer. ''The Iliad.'' Translated by Richmond Lattimore.  University of Chicago Press, 1951.</ref>

In England the cluster was known as the "April Rainers" from an association with April showers, as recorded in the folk song "[[Green Grow the Rushes, O]]".

The cluster was probably first catalogued by [[Giovanni Battista Hodierna]] in 1654, and it subsequently appeared in many star atlases of the 17th and 18th centuries.<ref name="seds" /> However, [[Charles Messier]] did not include the Hyades in his 1781 catalog of deep sky objects.<ref name="seds" /> It therefore lacks a Messier number, unlike many other, more distant open clusters – e.g., [[Beehive Cluster|M44]] (Praesepe), M45 ([[Pleiades]]), and [[Messier 67|M67]].

In 1869, the astronomer R.A. Proctor observed that numerous stars at large distances from the Hyades share a similar motion through space.<ref name="Zuckerman">{{cite journal |bibcode=2004ARA&A..42..685Z |title=Young Stars Near the Sun |last1=Zuckerman |first1=B. |last2=Song |first2=Inseok |journal=Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics |date=2004 |volume=42 |issue=1 |page=685 |doi=10.1146/annurev.astro.42.053102.134111 }}</ref> In 1908, [[Lewis Boss]] reported almost 25 years of observations to support this premise, arguing for the existence of a co-moving group of stars that he called the Taurus Stream (now generally known as the Hyades Stream or Hyades Supercluster). Boss published a chart that traced the scattered stars' movements back to a common point of convergence.<ref name="Boss">{{cite journal |bibcode=1908AJ.....26...31B |title=Convergent of a moving cluster in Taurus |last1=Boss |first1=Lewis J. |journal=The Astronomical Journal |date=1908 |volume=26 |page=31 |doi=10.1086/103802 }}</ref>

By the 1920s, the notion that the Hyades shared a common origin with the Praesepe Cluster was widespread,<ref name="Hertzprung">{{cite journal |bibcode=1922BAN.....1..150H |title=On the motions of Praesepe and of the Hyades |last1=Hertzsprung |first1=E. |journal=Bulletin of the Astronomical Institutes of the Netherlands |date=1922 |volume=1 |page=150 }}</ref> with Rudolf Klein-Wassink noting in 1927 that the two clusters are "probably cosmically related".<ref name="Klein-Wassink">{{cite journal |bibcode=1927PGro...41....1K |title=The proper motion and the distance of the Praesepe cluster |last1=Klein Wassink |first1=W. J. |journal=Publications of the Kapteyn Astronomical Laboratory Groningen |date=1927 |volume=41 |page=1 }}</ref> For much of the twentieth century, scientific study of the Hyades focused on determining its distance, modeling its evolution, confirming or rejecting candidate members, and characterizing individual stars.