The Praesepe or Beehive Cluster in Cancer

One of the largest and mearest of the open clusters. This cluster is estimated to be about 525 light years away and contains something like 200 stars. The cluster has a radius of about 40 light years.

Images taken with a 200mm f2.8 lens piggybacked on a TEC-140 Telescope mounted on Losmandy G11 mount. Camera used was a Canon EOS20D used at prime focus.

Five 3 minutes exposures dark compensated, aligned and stacked, background removed and Digitaly Developed in ImagesPlus 2.75.