What Is The Beehive Cluster?
The Beehive Cluster (an older name is Praesepe (pronounced [praɪˈsiːpɪ], (Latin for “manger” or “crib/cradle”)), M44, Messier 44 or NGC 2632, is an open cluster in the constellation Cancer.
It’s a beautiful, bright open cluster that is very pleasing to see through binoculars or a small telescope. This cluster contains red giants and white dwarfs, in total about a thousand young stars (600 million years old), but our eyes can not detect them all. It has the size of three full moons.
M44 The Beehive Cluster was one of the first objects that Galileo studied with his telescope.
With about 600 light-years away, M44 is one of the closest star clusters to our solar system.
M44 can be found by drawing an imaginary line from Pollux, for 37 degrees in the direction of Regulus. The Beehive Cluster lies roughly in the middle of the imaginary line.
Why is M44 called the Beehive Cluster?
It’s called the “Beehive” cluster because it looks like a hive of bees. It is easily visible to the unaided eye in the dark sky as a misty cloud just west of the mid-point between the stars Asellus Borealis and Asellus Australis.
Image details
- Telescope: Sky-Watcher Explorer Black Diamond N200/1000
- Mount: iOptron CEM60 on an iOptron tri-pier
- Camera: ZWO ASI294MC Pro
- Telescope control: ZWO ASIair v1
- Software: Astro Pixel Processor (stacking & processing); DPP4 (Canon software -> little finishing touch)
Data captured on 05/03/2021
Total integration time: 5.27 hours
SQM-L: 19.25 (Bortle class 6)
No guiding, no coma corrector, no filter
