Messier 44 (NGC 2632) - wonderfuluniverse.de

Messier 44 (NGC 2632) from my backyard and remote

Messier 44 (NGC 2632), also known as the Beehive Cluster or Praesepe, is a large and prominent open cluster located in the constellation Cancer. Easily visible to the naked eye under dark skies, it forms a striking swarm of stars that has fascinated observers since ancient times.

I have imaged this object twice — first in 2007 from my backyard, and later in 2023, when I obtained a remote dataset from Telescope Live, one of my favorite imaging providers with observatories located in Chile, Australia, and Spain. This newer dataset offered much deeper exposures and finer resolution, providing a great opportunity to revisit and reprocess this familiar target.

The data calibration, registration, and final image processing were all performed in PixInsight.

Messier 44 (Telescope Live, Chile), 2023

As you can see, there a very many galaxies in the image. There were so many quasars in the image (more than 1500) that they could not be displayed at all. Some have redshifts of over 3z.

This image contains also many asteroids. Below is a list with names and magnitudes.

221 Eos 13.64
223 Rosa 14.98
661 Cloelia 15.14
893 Leopoldina 15.55
1225 Ariane 16.04
1350 Rosselia 16.18
1383 Limburgia 18.40
1956 Artek 17.56
2065 Spicer 17.70
2334 Cuffey 17.62
2406 Orelskaya 18.01
2866 Hardy 18.06
3032 Evans 17.26
3723 Voznesenskij 18.59
3831 Pettengill 18.33
3929 Carmelmaria 18.62
4073 Ruianzhongxue 18.66
4079 Britten 18.10
4929 Yamatai 18.02
4933 Tylerlinder 18.21
5097 Axford 19.18
5124 Muraoka 18.21
5358 Meineko 16.89
5487 1991 UM4 18.32
6236 Mallard 19.16
6273 Kiruna 18.86
6646 Churanta 18.01
6698 Malhotra 18.96
7222 Alekperov 18.92
8707 Arakihiroshi 18.96
10204 Turing 19.10
10541 Malesherbes 18.98
12569 1998 VC29 18.83
13157 Searfoss 18.64
13256 Marne 18.64
13590 1994 AC3 19.14
14048 1995 WS7 18.90
15808 Zelter 18.72
15994 1998 YO8 18.44
17060 Mikecombi 18.54
19782 2000 QT68 19.13
19895 5161 T-2 18.65
19983 Inagekiyokazu 17.92
21466 Franpelrine 18.90
24930 Annajamison 18.80
25509 Rodwong 19.05
27069 1998 SK75 19.03
27333 2000 CX85 18.25
29834 Mariacallas 19.18
33769 1999 RN112 18.73
35656 1998 OZ12 18.84
35876 1999 JX74 18.79
48584 1994 PF37 19.19
87619 2000 RM48 18.87

The images were taken with the following equipment:

Date: 2023
Location: IC Astronomy Observatory, Spain
Telescope/Lens: Takahashi FSQ-106EDX4
Focal length [mm]: 382
Focal ratio: 3.6
Mount: Paramount MX+
Camera: QHY 600M Pro
Filter: L:R:G:B
Exposure time [min]: 140:140:140:140
Resolution: 2.02″/px

The 2007 image of this object was captured from my backyard using a DSLR camera, during my early years in astrophotography. The data calibration and registration were carried out using DeepSkyStacker, while the final image processing was performed in PixInsight.