M41 Observation Details
M41 Daily Motion
M41 rise at 20:27, and will be at 29° when twilight starts at 00:32. It will reach its transit at 29° at 01:12, and will set at 05:58, before twighlight ends at 06:46.M41 will be visible until January, 1, when it will move too close to the Sun. During this time, its proximity to the Sun will cause it to disappear from the night sky, making it unobservable for a while.
M41 Visibility Timetable on December 22
Rise and Set Timetable
| Time | Elevation | |
| Astrosession begin | 18:48 | -18° |
| M41 rise | 20:27 | |
| Moon Rise, 57% illuminated | 23:50 | 26° |
| M41 transit | 01:12 | 29° |
| M41 set | 05:58 | |
| Astrosession end | 06:13 | -3° |
| Moon Set | 12:24 | -68° |
Track M41 Position Throughout the Night
← Sun, 22 December 2024 →
| Time | |
| Altitude | |
| Azimuth |
M41 - Open Cluster
M41 is an open cluster located in the constellation Canis Major. It was discovered by Giovanni Batista Hodierna before 1654 and independently by Charles Messier in 1765. The cluster contains a mix of young, hot stars and older stars.
M41 spans about 25 light-years across and contains around 100 stars. The cluster is approximately 2,300 light-years away from Earth and has an apparent magnitude of 4.5, making it visible to the naked eye under dark skies and easily seen with binoculars or a small telescope.
M41 Image Gallery
DSS Blue
DSS Red
DSS Near-Infrared
DSS Composite image
The photos are taken from the Digitized Sky Survey 2 (DSS2), which was produced at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) under NASA contract, using data from the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), the European Southern Observatory (ESO), and the National Geographic Society-Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS II).
Special thanks to the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO), the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, and the California Institute of Technology for their significant contributions.
Finder Chart for M41
| Object name | M41 |
| Field of view | |
| Limiting magnitude | |
| M41 coordinates | 6.76665, -20.75422 |
| Center coordinates | 6.76665, -20.75422 |
M41 Passage Through Night
Current position of M41
| Time | 00:32 |
| Latitude | 39.9625 |
| Longitude | -83.0061 |
| M41 elevation | 29° |
| M41 Azimuth | -169° |
Annual motion of M41
| Date | Mon, 23 December 2024 |
| Twighlight start | 18:44 |
| Twighlight end | 06:07 |
| Twighlight duration | 11h 23m |
| Rise | 20:23 |
| Set | 05:54 |
| Elevation at transit | 29° |
| Transit time | 01:08 |
| Equatorial coordinate | RA: 06h 45m 59s", Dec: -20° 45' 15s |
| Magnitude | 5 |
| Constellation | Canis Major |
The graph is structured with the vertical axis showing the hours of the day, ranging from 12 AM to 12 AM the next day, while the horizontal axis spans each day of the year.
The reddish shaded area indicates the periods when the M41 is above the horizon, visible to observers. The white line marks the times when the celestial object reaches its highest point in the sky each day, known as the transit.
Data Credits
The nebulae information on this page is sourced from the OpenNGC project, developed by Matteo Verga. OpenNGC provides detailed data on the NGC catalog, which is a valuable resource for exploring deep-sky objects such as nebulae.
For more details or to contribute to OpenNGC, visit the official GitHub repository: OpenNGC on GitHub.