• Messier 44 in Cancer, Praesepe
    • M44
    Annotated image
  • Open cluster M44 in Cancer, also called
  • The Praesepe or the Beehive Cluster.
  • The second nearest open cluster to Earth.
  • 1000 hot, new stars, perhaps only 200 million years old.
  • Hover over the picture for an annotated version
  • Date:  9 and 13 May 2023
  • FOV:  cropped to 4° 10' × 2° 47'; the angular size of M44 is about 1.5°
  • Telescope:  Askar FRA300 pro (300mm f/5 Petzval)
  • Guiding:  ZWO ASI385MC planetary camera,
  • ZWO 30F4 30mm mini guide scope
  • Computer:  ASIair plus Raspberry Pi
  • Mount:  iOptron CEM40
  • Camera:  Canon EOS T6s with iso 1600
  • Filter:  Internal Camera UV/IR cut
  • Stacking:  Twenty-five 240 second frames using Deep Sky Stacker
  • 20 Dark Flats, 20 Flats, 15 Darks, 15 Lights 9 May 2023
  • 20 Dark Flats, 20 Flats, 16 Darks, 10 Lights 13 May 2023
  • Total Time:  1 hour 40 minutes
  • Processing:  Pixinsight – SPCC, DBE, SPCC, BlurXT, NoiseXT,
  • GHS, HST, Mask, PMath GHS + HST + Mask, Sat, SCNR green, Bkg,
  • PMath max(Sat,Bkg), DynCrop/Scale
  • Location:  Darling Hill Observatory near Vesper, NY