Instrument

Takahashi FSQ-106ED @ f/5.0 (530 mm F.L.) Captured at 2.1 arcsec/pixel.  Shown at 4.2 and 9.33 arcsec/pixel.

Mount

Losmandy G11 with Gemini L4 v1.0

Camera

SBIG STF-8300M Self Guiding Package w/ mono ST-i, using Baader RGB filters.

Acquisition Data

1/23/2014 to 1/29/2014 Chino Valley, AZ... with CCDAutoPilot5 & CCDSoft.

Exposure

Software & Processing Notes

• CCDSoft, CCDStack, PixInsight and Photoshop CS6.

• eXcalibrator v4.25 for (g:r) color balancing, using 292 stars from the SDSS-DR9 database.

• CCDStack to calibrate, register, normalize, data reject, combine the sub exposures and to create the RGB image.

• PixInsight for gradient removal and initial non-linear stretching.

• PhotoShop for final touch-up.

• Noiseware 5, a PhotoShop plug-in.

Comment

North is to the top.
M44, The Beehive Cluster, (aka NGC 2632) is located in the constellation Cancer. At a distance of about 600 light-years, it is one of the closest clusters to the Solar System. Its estimated age is about 600 million years. As compared to our Sun, at about 4.5 billion years, the M44 is quite young.

Until Galileo first viewed the cluster with a telescope, M44 was believed to be a faint cloud or nebula. NGC 2632 contains about 1000 stars, but Galileo was only able to see about 40. Still, its beauty must have astounded him.

The apparent size of the cluster is 95 arc minutes, about three times the size of the Moon. At this size, M44 is an excellent target for binoculars or a small telescope.