M44 - The Beehive Cluster (Tim Hutchison)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Cancer (Cnc) · Contains: 38 Cnc · 39 Cnc · 40 Cnc · 41 eps Cnc · 42 Cnc · Beehive · Beehive cluster · Cancer · IC 2388 · IC 2390 · M 44 · NGC 2624 · NGC 2625 · NGC 2632 · NGC 2637 · NGC 2643 · NGC 2647 · Praesepe · Praesepe Cluster

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M44 - The Beehive Cluster

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M44 - The Beehive Cluster

M44 - The Beehive cluster, also knows as "The Manger" (which may be more appropriate for this time of year) has been know to astronomers since antiquity. With a distance of only 577 light years from Earth, it is one of the closest open clusters to our solar system. This cluster was one of the first deep sky objects studies by Galileo Galilei with his telescope in 1609. It can be seen with the naked eye in dark skies, appearing as a bright smudge in the constellation of Cancer. More appropriately viewed with binoculars or a telescope, it reveals a great collection of red dwarf and main sequence stars.

In 2012 scientists discovered two planets orbiting "sun-like" stars in this cluster. These two planets were the first discovered orbiting sun-like stars in a cluster and are referred to as "hot jupiters", gas giants with very high surface temperatures due to their much closer orbit to their parent stars.

While this image doesn't have the visual impact of a large beautiful nebula, I still think the color of the stars and the history make for a nice image.

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	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
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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.
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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	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	4085210
PixInsight job	NKBZ118GU4FRDM622LHYZR1RP3E7MR9A
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

RA (center)	08h40m17s.899
RA (top/left)	08h44m34s.605
RA (top/right)	08h35m55s.830
RA (bottom/right)	08h36m03s.275
RA (bottom/left)	08h44m38s.483

Dec (center)	+19°42′20″.10
Dec (top/left)	+20°23′28″.33
Dec (top/right)	+20°21′16″.70
Dec (bottom/right)	+19°00′56″.70
Dec (bottom/left)	+19°03′06″.27

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M44 - The Beehive Cluster

M44 - The Beehive Cluster

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M44 - The Beehive Cluster

M44 - The Beehive Cluster

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