Brilliant Southern Beehive

Image of the Southern Beehive, NGC 2516, an open cluster in the Carina constellation.

NGC 2516 is an open star cluster located 1,217 light-years away in the southern constellation of Carina. It is also known as Caldwell 96, the Southern Beehive, or the Sprinter.

It contains two 5th magnitude red giant stars and three main visual double stars.

The cluster is surrounded by a 500-parsec diameter halo consisting of stars ejected from cluster.

This LRGB image was acquired with CHI-2 (ASA500N telescope). Data from a one-click.

Total integration time only 40 minutes

LRGB: 2 subs of 300s with each filter.