M41

[Bennythebrit]

As was going to bed looked out the bedroom window and could see Sirius burning bright to the south. Got the bins out ( 10 x56 ed) and could clearly make out m41( even better with averted vision) Swept back up to Orion and got a great dusty view of M42.

I think I'm hooked.

[acey]

Well done. It can be seen with the naked eye at a sufficiently dark site (and if it's high enough in the sky) and was possibly seen by Aristotle, though discovery credit usually goes to Hodierna in the 1600s. He used a Galilean refractor which would probably have had an aperture of an inch or so. Hodierna also made the earliest known drawing of the Orion Nebula (M42). Not very detailed but an historic achievement.

http://messier.seds.org/more/m042_hodierna.html