M44 (NGC 2632) is an open cluster in the constellation Cancer. This famous cluster is also called Praesepe (Latin for “manger”), or the Beehive Cluster. At magnitude 3.7, it can be readily seen by the naked eye on a dark night. See the location of M44 below.

M44

M44 is the start of the RASC Messier object spring list.

The picture was taken with a fully modified Canon Rebel camera (this is my one shot color (OSC)) on a TEC 140 telescope from the Alpenglow-Torrey House Observatory in the dark sky community of Torrey, Utah (Bortle 2-3). Ten best of 14 45-second sub frames stacked in Deep Sky Stacker = 7.5 minute photo. Processed in Photoshop (CS5). Unguided, no calibration frames.

I used a narrow band filter (hydrogen-alpha) because of the nearly full moon.

M44 is a lot larger than my field of view.

Location of M44:

Source: Astrometry.net