Visitor to Beehive

Just days ago, in April, the familiar Beehive Cluster (in Cancer) had a visitor - Mars. The brightest object in this photo to the right is Mars.

Beehive or Praesepe (also known as M44) is a large star cluster - and a wonderful Binocular object. Praesepe, in Latin means cradle or manger. Most of the stars in M44 are about 600 light years away. Interestingly, Mars is about 600 light "seconds" away from Planet Earth.

I shot this in Boise, Idaho right from my backyard. City lights and a rigid tripod mount (no tracking) prevented me from extended exposure. However, using ISO 1600 allowed me to capture most of the stars in M44.

comments welcome.