Observations of object "M44 (Praesepe)"

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Observations of object "M44 (Praesepe)":

M44 (Praesepe) (Open Cluster, in Cancer)
Observer: Michael Amato (e-mail: abigmick@aol.com)
Instrument: 18-inch Dobsonian reflector Location: Branford, Connecticut, United States
Time: Sun Apr 22 01:00:00 2018 UT Obs. no.: 2051

This evening, my brother Anthony & I went to a local star party. Even though the moon was a waxing crescent, we were able to have good views of 6 galaxies. We started with M104, The Sombreros Galaxy. Its dust lane cut right across the galaxy. Next we viewed M51 & its companion galaxy that is merging with it. We were able to see the spiral effect of M51. Next, we viewed M81 & M82 at the same time. The dust lanes on M82 were very obvious & the spiral effect on M81 was impressive. Finally, we viewed M63 & saw a great dust lane going through that also. M44 The Beehive Open Cluster was the best thing I saw tonight. We also viewed M13, M92, M42, Venus & the moon itself. It was a nice night.

M44 (Praesepe) (Open Cluster, in Cancer)
Observer: Michael Amato (e-mail: abigmick@aol.com)
Instrument: 127-mm other   Location: West Haven, Connecticut, United States
Light pollution: moderate   Transparency: fair   Seeing: fair
Time: Wed Apr 19 01:00:00 2017 UT   Obs. no.: 2005

This evening, my brother Anthony & I viewed open clusters M41,44,35,36,37.38 & 67 with our 5" MAK. M44 was the best out of all the open clusters we looked at. We also saw one of Jupiter's moons right after it emerged from behind Jupiter. We also viewed a few galaxies but the view was not good for them.

Early this morning I observed M44 the Bee Hive Cluster with my 127mm MAK and 12mm Televue Eyepiece. The Bee Hive was a beautiful sight in both my telescope and my 10X50 binoculars. But on this day the Bee Hive had a special guest. The planet Mars was sitting on the edge of M44. One of the Bee Hive stars sat very close to Mars to add to the effect. When I aimed my scope at Mars I was able to see its northern ice cap with little difficulty. On the morning of Nov. 3rd Mars will still be embedded in the cluster so anyone will still have a chance to see Mars in the Bee Hive.

M44 (Praesepe) (Open Cluster, in Cancer)
Observer: Michael Amato (e-mail: abigmick@aol.com)
Instrument: 20-inch Dobsonian reflector   Location: Milford, Connecticut, United States
Light pollution: light   Transparency: good   Seeing: good
Time: Sat May 24 01:00:00 2008 UT   Obs. no.: 1786

This evening my friends Steve Borer, Rob Massau and I went to a local star party to view several Messier objects through a 20" dob. The first object we observed was M44 the Beehive Cluster. This cluster had a very special guest called Mars on its northern edge. One of the cluster stars was very close to Mars and this combination looked like a close binary star. We observed two globular clusters, M4 and M13. M13 showed numerous individual stars and it was quite spectacular. Many stars were also seen in M4. M57 the Ring Nebula surprised us by showing us its interior star. It's very hard to see M57's interior star but conditions were perfect for us to see it. We also observed three galaxies, M81, M82 and M104. We were able to see the spiral effect of M81 and and the dust lanes of both M82 and M104. They were both easy to see. We also trained our scope on Saturn. We were able to see a belt of Saturn and the shadow cast on Saturn's rings by the planet. We then were treated to a fine view of the ISS as it passed by at about -.5 magnitude. Finally when we were on the way home we saw Jupiter and the moon rising together in the southeastern sky. What a great night we had!

M44 (Praesepe) (Open Cluster, in Cancer)
Observer: Michael Amato (e-mail: abigmick@aol.com)
Instrument: 35-mm binoculars   Location: Stratford, Connecticut, United States
Light pollution: moderate   Transparency: poor   Seeing: fair
Time: Fri May 23 02:00:00 2008 UT   Obs. no.: 1785

This evening my friends Steve Borer, Mike Dzubaty and I observed Mars entering the Beehive Cluster. All we had with us was 7X35 binoculars but we were able to see Mars sitting on the east side of M44. On Friday night Mars will be on the north side of M44 and I will have better binoculars to observe this event.

M44 (Praesepe) (Open Cluster, in Cancer)
Observer: Michael Amato (e-mail: abigmick@aol.com)
Instrument: 18-inch Dobsonian reflector   Location: Milford, Connecticut, United States
Light pollution: moderate   Transparency: fair   Seeing: fair
Time: Sat Apr 21 01:00:00 2007 UT   Obs. no.: 1639

This evening my friend Steve Borer and I joined about 30 other people from our group The Astromomical Society Of New Haven for an informal star party at a Milford Ct. beach. The first object that we looked at was the crescent moon. The earth shine was very bright and to our surprise, we were able to see Aristarchus crater and its ray even though it was deeply imbedded in the earthshine. Next we visited Venus which is still a waning cresent at about 55- 60%. The cloud deck had some darker patches in it but they were subtle. When we turned the 18" dob on Saturn, we saw four moons. There was one band that was visible on the planet. Everyone including the children were all stunned by the Orion Nebula despite its being low in the western sky. We tried to split two double stars with the 18" dob. Sirius proved to be too low in the sky to be able to be split but Polaris was a tight but comfortable seperation. We observed two galaxies M104 and M82. M104 was disapointing and we were not able to see its dust lanes but M82 showed quite well and we could see its many dust lanes quite easily. With a 40mm eyepiece in the 18' dob. we viewed M44 the behive cluster. This was a truly great object to observe. We were able to see small groupings of stars within the entire cluster. Believe me when I say this was my greatest view of the behive I've ever had. All in all it was a great get together among friends.

This evening, I observed M44, The Beehive Cluster with my 127mm MAK. I observed that most of the stars in the cluster are yellow, and some of the stars look pale blue to me. There are several double and triple star systems in the cluster that are widely seperated. I couldn't find any close binary systems in the cluster.

M44 (Praesepe) (Open Cluster, in Cancer)
Observer: Joe Caggiano (e-mail: jcaggiano@mindspring.com)
Instrument: 6-inch equatorial reflector   Location: Horsham, Pa., USA
Light pollution: moderate   Transparency: excellent   Seeing: excellent
Time: Wed May 11 00:00:00 2005 UT   Obs. no.: 1234

Started around 6:30 EST to check out the sun. Viewing at various powers between 30x and 75x I viewed Sunspot group 759 and 763. Group 763 looked like a group of about 3 dozen "tiny" sunspots (Mrcury sized?) spread out like a small island chain. Group 759 appeared as a single large sunspot whose penumbra nearly tripled the size of the umbra. I could pick up intrcate detail in this large sunspot. Afterwards I waited about an hour and a half to view the moon. Viewing at 30x and 75x the detail was astounding. I caught a rift on the face of the moon just off the termination line. It looked like a fault line in the moon's crust that can only be seen during this phase. Viewing some of the southern craters and mountains at over 200x always leaves me speechless. Around 8:37, Saturn blinked into view. Viewing tionight was not as good as the previous nights. There was a thin haze in the upper atmosphere so that viewing at 203x was difficult to see the Cassinni Division. I caught both Rhea and Titan, but because of the haze 2 other moons kept blinking in and out of view. Jupiter's view was not much better. All 4 Galilean moons were visible with Calipso in a WIDE orbit...possibly 10 Jovian diameters from the planet itself. I had to pan the scope in order to catch it at 203x. ALl that was visible on Jupiter was the 2 equatorial belts and the South Polar Zone. The north looked all beige. Tried for various galaxies again in the Coma region just off the tail of Leo, but the First Quarter moon drowned out everything in the area. Decided to end my night looking off of Gemini to spot M44 star clusted. Beautiful at low power I only caught about half as many stars as I should have due to the haze. Still impressive though.

M44 (Praesepe) (Open Cluster, in Cancer)
Observer: Emil Neata (e-mail: forvert2000@yahoo.com, web: http://www.astroclubul.org/emilneata)
Instrument: 60-mm refractor   Location: Craiova, Romania
Light pollution: light   Transparency: fair   Seeing: fair
Time: Tue Jan 25 00:00:00 2005 UT   Obs. no.: 1156

M 44 (Praesepe cluster) - Easily seen with the naked eye. Through the telescope I've seen a huge number of stars, arranged in the shape of an isosceles triangle.

M44 (Praesepe) (Open Cluster, in Cancer)
Observer: Michael Amato (e-mail: abigmick@aol.com)
Instrument: 8-inch Dobsonian reflector   Location: West Haven, Connecticut, United States
Light pollution: none   Transparency: excellent   Seeing: excellent
Time: Sun Mar 17 00:30:00 2002 UT   Obs. no.: 623

M 44, the beehive open cluster contains many yellow stars. What amazed me, was the numerous double stas in the cluster.

M44 (Praesepe) (Open Cluster, in Cancer)
Observer: Patricio Greco (e-mail: patricio_greco@hotmail.com)
Instrument: 9.25-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain reflector   Location: San Miguel, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Light pollution: light   Transparency: good   Seeing: good
Time: Sun Jan 20 02:50:00 2002 UT   Obs. no.: 773

Open Cluster , many stars , looks spread with a x50 Plossl objetive.

M44 (Praesepe) (Open Cluster, in Cancer)
Observer: Mike Pierce (e-mail: xtozaj@webtv.net)
Instrument: 90-mm refractor   Location: Malone, Florida, USA
Light pollution: light   Transparency: good   Seeing: good
Time: Fri Jan 15 03:30:00 1999 UT   Obs. no.: 436

Tonight, the sky was jet black. I had some concerns on dew setting in on my binos and scope. I got my obs. before this became an issue. I observed M44 and it was awesome. I noted some 100+ stars in the field. Cancer is certainly one of the more obscure constellations, given the low magnitude stars that that make up this naked eye asterism. It is a fine open cluster.

M44 (Praesepe) (Open Cluster, in Cancer)
Observer: John Callender (e-mail: jbc@west.net, web: http://www.west.net/~jbc/)
Instrument: 8-inch Dobsonian reflector   Location: Carpinteria, CA, USA
Light pollution: light   Transparency: good   Seeing: good
Time: Sat Apr 18 07:00:00 1998 UT   Obs. no.: 326

After losing my way in the treacherous reefs of the Virgo Cluster (and stetching my neck uncomfortably to reach the eyepiece with the telescope pointing near the zenith; I've got to get a proper observing chair, or at least a taller stool for those times), I looked about 45 degrees up in the West and saw the glow of Praesepe, like the loom of a lighthouse that leads to a safe harbor at journey's end. I swung the telescope down to it, and enjoyed the familiar beauty of the cluster's many sparkling doubles and triples.

M44 (Praesepe) (Open Cluster, in Cancer)
Observer: Dave Mitsky (e-mail: djm28@psu.edu)
Instrument: 12.5-inch equatorial reflector   Location: Harrisburg, Pa, U.S.A.
Light pollution: moderate   Transparency: fair   Seeing: poor
Time: Mon Apr 28 00:00:00 1997 UT   Obs. no.: 127

I used the large open cluster M44 to compare my new 19mm Tele Vue Panoptic (108x) to an old 20mm Meade Wide Angle (103x) using the ASH 12.5" f/6.5 Cave Newtonian. Despite the higher magnification the Panoptic had a larger field of view. Stars appeared as crisp points of light. There was no noticeable coma with the Panoptic while the Widefield exhibited a fair amount of coma at the edge of the field. M44 was too large to fit entirely into the Panoptic's f.o.v. I also observed Comet Hale-Bopp with the 12.5" at 108x and the ASH 17" f/15 at 118x. Using the 12.5" and a 9mm Nagler (229x) I viewed M3, the Leo Trio (M65, M66, and NGC 3628), and M104 before clouds ended my session.

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