Beehive Cluster (Praesepe)

About the object

The Beehive, or Praesepe, in Cancer, one of the nearest open clusters to us and one of the few known since antiquity: to the eye it is a hazy patch, and Galileo was the first to resolve it into stars. More than a thousand stars about six hundred million years old are spread over an area three times the Moon's. The Beehive is almost the same age as the Hyades and moves the same way, so both clusters were probably born together.

Distance: about 600 light-years, apparent size in the sky: ≈ 95′, constellation Cancer.

How it was shot

Everything here was shot with a DWARF Mini smart telescope from a balcony in a city in Ukraine: light-polluted sky, only the eastern half of it visible, and a roof overhang that cuts off the south. 3 nights (2 nights in September and 1 in October), 3 sessions, 681 frames with exposures of 5, 10 and 30 s, without a filter, in broadband. The stack holds 1 h 32 min of light; the longest night, 28 September, gave 1 h 2 min. The goal for this object is 1 h, and it is reached. First night 8 September 2026, last one 12 October 2026.

Beehive Cluster (Praesepe) in the night log: 7 September, 28 September, 11 October.

How it went

The Beehive is big and bright, so it was a spring break from nebulae: short exposures of 5 to 30 seconds without a filter, three nights. The difficulty is not the object but the season: in spring it sits in the west, where the balcony does not face, and it has to be caught in the evening right after dusk.