The
Beehive Cluster, also known as
Praesepe (Latin for "manger"),
M44,
NGC 2632, or
Cr 189, is an
open cluster in the constellation
Cancer. It is one of the nearest open clusters to the
Solar System, and it contains a larger star population than most other nearby clusters. Under dark skies the Beehive Cluster looks like a nebulous object to the naked eye; thus it has been known since ancient times. The classical astronomer
Ptolemy called it "the nebulous mass in the breast of Cancer," and it was among the first objects that
Galileo studied with his telescope.