Explore the Universe - M44

There is a fairly bright Messier object located in the constellation of Cancer.  Messier 44 is located approximately halfway between Delta and Gamma Cancri.  Epislon Cancri actually forms part of M44.  Some people may have heard the more common name of M44 as the Beehive Cluster.

The Beehive Cluster essentially forms the heart of the crab asterism formed by the stars in Cancer.  The Romans called the open cluster Praesepe which means 'manger'.  It was thought that Delta and Gamma Cancri were two donkeys eating out of a manger (M44).  What is remarkable about the object is that it outshines most of the stars in its own constellation.  On occasion I have seen M44 prior to any other stars in Cancer.

Observing the cluster with a telescope can sometimes be challenging.  The cluster has an angular diameter of about 95' which is larger than the field of view of a medium-high power telescope with a basic eyepiece set.  Up until recently the widest field of view I could achieve in a telescope was 62.5'.  I recently added a wide field eyepiece to my collection which allows a field of view of 132'.  If you have a telescope with a shorter focal length it is much easier to achieve a wider field of view with a larger array of eyepieces.  This makes the cluster a prime object for binocular astronomy since the average set of binoculars gives you a field of view around 5° or 300'.  This will allow most wide field sky objects to be seen all at once.  However, there are a few exceptions.  Objects like the Coma Star Cluster pose some difficulty and require small wide field binoculars to fully view.

To find M44 I started at the triplet of bright stars forming the head of Hydra.  I moved my telescope upwards and found M67 and made a record.  I then continued upward and found the two donkeys feeding at the manger.  It did not fit into my 25mm plossl eyepiece so I switched to my 41mm Panoptic.  The view was amazing.  I could see hundreds of stars.

The observation record is shown below.

M44 Observation Record

I tried to image the cluster but had little success as the field of view produced by my telescope could only catch a partial view.  Until I learn how to stitch images together or use a shorter focal length scope I won't have a great image.  I may try to image the cluster with just a bare zoom lens on the camera.  The Moon has an angular diameter of about 30' so I have some optimism about the outcome with a 95' cluster.  The image below is approximately the central region of the cluster.

M44