M 44 (NGC 2632, Lund 468) Open Cluster in Cancer
Located at: RA 08 hours 40 minutes 24 seconds, Dec +19 degrees 40 minutes 00 seconds
Size: 95' (70'); Magnitude: 3.1; Class: II 3 m
North is up
West to the right
| Telescope: |
8" f5 Newtonian reflector |
| Camera: |
ST-8XME, self-guided, binned 1x1, temp -15c & -25c, camera control MaxIm DL 4.56 |
| Image: |
Lumicon Red filter, 280 minutes (28 x 10 minute subs), 01/16 & 02/1/2011; seeing 2.9-4.1 FWHM per CCDStack |
| Processing: |
CCDStack 2.17.3996.27523, Photoshop 7.0 |
| Location: |
Rolling Roof Observatory, Thousand Oaks, CA 91360 (+34d 13m 29s -118h 52m 20s) |
| Notes: | I shot this Messier open cluster after completing early evening runs
on a couple of other objects ... M 44 is way to large for my field
of view (about 31' x 46'), so this image is of the center of the cluster
only. This open cluster is way off the plane of the Milky Way, so
several galaxies can be seen in the background. See this
information from SEDS. According to "Star Clusters", by Brent Archinal and Steven Hynes, the size of this open cluster is 70 arc minutes. From the NGC / IC Project: Contemporary Visual Observation(s) for NGC 2632NGC 2632 = M44 = Beehive 08 40 22 +19 40.2 V = 3.1; Size 95 16x80:extremely large, 1.5? diameter, very bright, brightest stars are mag 6- 6.5, includes many double stars, well resolved. Too large for decent view in 13" or 17.5". Bright naked-eye cluster. - by Steve Gottlieb |