HOW TO SPOT THE BEEHIVE CLUSTER

WHEN: MARCH-APRIL

One of the best things to find in early spring, if you have a pair of binoculars, is the Beehive Cluster. Like the Pleiades, the Beehive is an open star cluster, a group of a few thousand relatively young stars (many of them are only 600 million years old, compared to our Sun’s 4.5 billion). These stars are found in the same place because they all developed out of the same huge cloud of gas.

At 520-610 light-years away, it’s one of the nearest open clusters to Earth and has more bright stars than most of the other close clusters, such as the Alpha Persei cluster. It can be seen very faintly with the naked eye in dark skies, but is much more visible with binoculars. Overall, it stretches more than three times the Moon’s diameter across the night sky.

The Beehive Cluster is in the constellation of Cancer. To find Cancer, it’s best to first look for the pair of stars Castor and Pollux, in the neighbouring constellation Gemini. You can start at the Plough (also called the Big Dipper) to find them. If you imagine the Plough is a pan with a handle, draw an imaginary line from the end of the handle through the star that makes the top edge of the pan, called Merak. Keep this line going and you’ll see a pair of bright stars. These are Castor and Pollux.

Then, you have to find Leo, which is distinctive because of its question mark-shaped asterism. There are two pointer stars in the Plough – the two outer stars in the bowl – that can be used to find Polaris (or the North Star), which will appear very bright. Draw a line in the opposite direction and you’ll get to Leo.

Looking halfway between Gemini and Leo, you’ll find Cancer, with the Beehive Cluster in the middle of the constellation.