Known since ancient times, the Beehive Cluster sits at the heart of Cancer and was described by Ptolemy as "a nebulous mass in the breast of Cancer." Galileo turned his telescope on it in 1609, resolving around 40 of its stars, and Charles Messier added it to his catalogue around 1769 - giving us the designation M 44.

Around 600 light-years away, the cluster spans roughly 15 light-years and is thought to host about 1,000 stars. Though young by cosmic standards at 600–700 million years old, it is among the third-brightest objects in the Messier catalogue - and a particular joy to image from a city, where its broad scatter of stars fills the frame with detail even through the glow of London's skies.

Its age and proper motion are closely matched to those of the Hyades, suggesting the two clusters may share a common origin - a reminder that even familiar objects hold deep connections across the galaxy.

Because there is relatively little interstellar matter in the direction of M 44, the view extends right through the cluster, and with enough exposure, background galaxies hundreds of millions of light-years away can be glimpsed lurking between its stars.

The 130PDS's four-spike diffraction pattern gives the brighter cluster members a pleasing star shape that refractors can't quite match - one of the quiet pleasures of a Newtonian on a target like this.