The Beehive Cluster, Messier 44 (Steven Hanaway)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Cancer (Cnc) · Contains: Beehive cluster · M 44 · NGC 2632 · Praesepe

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The Beehive Cluster, Messier 44

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The Beehive Cluster, Messier 44

Good morning everyone! Today's image is The Beehive Cluster, also known as Praespe, and catalogued as Messier 44. This open cluster of stars can be found in the constellation Cancer approximately 577 light years away from Earth. This star cluster is one of the nearest star clusters to Earth, and can be seen with the naked eye, appearing as a hazy patch or as a patch of nebulosity. This object was one of the first objects Galileo studied with his telescope, and was also observed by Ptolemy. This open cluster of stars is relatively young, estimated to be approximately 600 million years old, with its age and proper motion being similar to the Hyades Cluster. Several stars in the cluster are in the late stages of stellar evolution, with the cluster containing both red giants and white dwarf stars. The stars in this cluster have undergone mass segregation, with more massive stars located centrally, while less massive stars are located in the outer halo of the cluster. A few planets have been found in orbit around stars in this cluster, with at least 1000 stars estimated to be gravitationally bound in the cluster. I hope you like today's image, as well as today's information. I upload a new image daily, so be sure to check back often. As always, clear skies!

Please note: The following tables are updated every 24 hours.

Distribution of astrophotographers

This table shows the number of distinct astrophotographers who have been assigned and IOTD/TP award compared to the total number of images awarded.
	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

Distribution of subject types

This table shows the distribution of awards per subject type, compared to the popularity of images of that subject type.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

Distribution of data sources

This table shows the distribution of awards per data source, compared to the popularity of images acquired from that data source.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
Promotions by Submitters When 3 distinct Submitters promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for Top Pick status. This requirement, in addition to anonymization of images and distribution to only a subset of them, prevents biases and ensures that the best images are selected.
Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

Status	Basic success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	1924147
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

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The Beehive Cluster, Messier 44

The Beehive Cluster, Messier 44

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Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

The Beehive Cluster, Messier 44

The Beehive Cluster, Messier 44

Equipment

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Description

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