Last night we had clear sky for a few hours and I wasn't going to image for the temp was around 19 degrees, with a little wind, but I couldn’t pass up the clear sky.  I last visited M44 last February.  I was thinking of using the Optolong UV/IR cut filter to glad I went with the L-Pro filter.

Below Information from [url]https://messier-objects.com:[/url]

Messier 44 (M44), also known as the Beehive Cluster or Praesepe (the Manger), is an open star cluster in the constellation Cancer. Praesepe is a bright, large cluster with an apparent magnitude of 3.7. It lies at a distance of 577 light years from Earth. It has the designation NGC 2632 in the New General Catalogue.

M44 is one of the nearest open clusters to Earth and can easily be seen without binoculars. It appears as a blurry patch of light to the naked eye. The cluster is best seen in binoculars and small telescopes. Occupying an area 95 arc minutes across, it fits in the field of view of binoculars and low power telescopes. Larger telescopes reveal more than 200 stars in the cluster.The best time of year to observe the Beehive Cluster is from February to May, when Cancer rises high in the sky for northern observers.The constellation is pretty faint, but it lies between two considerably brighter zodiac constellations, Leo to the east and Gemini to the west.Another faint constellation, Lynx, lies to the north, while Canis Minor, with the bright star Procyon, lies to the south of M44. An easy way to find the cluster is to draw a line from Pollux in Gemini to Regulus in Leo. M44 lies about halfway along the line.Praesepe is one of the brightest Messier objects and has been known since ancient times. The only objects on Messier’s list that are brighter than M44 are the Pleiades cluster (M45) and the Andromeda Galaxy (M31). The Pleiades are also the only deep sky object in Messier’s catalogue that is nearer to us than the Beehive Cluster. Winnecke 4 (M40), which is also closer, is a double star and not a deep sky object.Praesepe has a similar age and proper motion to the Hyades, the nearest open cluster to the solar system, which lies in the same line of sight as the bright star Aldebaran in Taurus constellation. The two clusters likely share a similar origin.The bright central core of M44 has a linear diameter of 22.8 light years (7 parsecs). The cluster’s half-mass radius is 12.7 light years (3.9 parsecs), and the tidal radius, the point beyond which stars are not gravitationally bound to the cluster, spans about 39 light years (12 parsecs).Praesepe contains at least 1,000 stars and has a mass between 500 and 600 times solar. About 68 percent of the members are M-class (red) dwarfs, 30 percent are of spectral types F, G and K, and 2 percent of the members are bright, A-class stars. Five giants have also been identified in the cluster: one with the stellar classification G0 III and four belonging to the spectral class K0 III. Researchers have also found 11 white dwarfs.The brightest stars in M44 have a visual magnitude of 6 to 6.5 and appear blue-white in colour.Messier 44 has experienced mass segregation, a process often seen in star clusters and other gravitationally bound systems (e.g. galaxy clusters), by which heavier objects move toward the centre, while lighter ones move away from the centre. The bright, massive stars of M44 are now concentrated in the central region of the cluster while the fainter, less massive members are found in the halo.In 2012, scientists discovered two planets orbiting two separate stars in the Beehive Cluster. These were the first planets discovered orbiting Sun-like stars in a star cluster. The planets, designated Pr0201b and Pr0211b, are hot Jupiters, extrasolar gas giants with characteristics similar to Jupiter and high surface temperatures because they have a much closer orbit to their parent stars. These planets are also known as roaster planets, epistellar jovians or pegasids.Messier 44 is a prominent deep sky object and has been known since ancient times. Greek poet and philosopher Aratus mentioned Praesepe (the Manger) in his poem Phainomaina or Phainomena (Heavenly Phenomena, or Appearances) in 260 B.C.:
Watch, too, the Manger. Like a faint mist in the North it plays the guide beneath Cancer. Around it are borne two faintly gleaming stars, not far apart nor very near but distant to the view a cubit’s length, one on the North, while the other looks towards the South. They are called the Asses, and between them is the Manger. On a sudden, when all the sky is clear, the Manger wholly disappears, while the stars that go on either side seem nearer drawn to one another: not slight then is the storm with which the fields are deluged. If the Manger darken and both stars remain unaltered, they herald rain. But if the Ass to the North of the Manger shine feebly through a faint mist, while the Southern Ass is gleaming bright, expect wind from the South: but if in turn the Southern Ass is cloudy and the Northern bright, watch for the North wind. -