Messier 67 and Messier 44 contrasting Open Star Clusters in the constellation Cancer

Messier 67 COAST Robotic Telescope Mount Teide Tenerife -BVR Filters - Credit: telescope.org - Open University and Pip Stakkert

Messier 44 - The Beehive Cluster - 127mm Meade Apo Refractor and Canon 400D DSLR - Credit: Kurt Thrust

" Both these interesting open star clusters in the constellation Cancer may be seen with binoculars from a dark site. Messier 44 may be viewed with the naked eye. Messier 67 is estimated to be 2,600 to 2,900 light years distant and between 3.2 and 5 billion years old. Messier 44 is estimated to be very much nearer at 520 to 610 light years and approximately 600 million years old. M 67 has an apparent magnitude of 6.1(just on the edge of visibility with the naked eye) and
 M 44 has an apparent magnitude of 3.7(and should be easily seen).

Messier 44 does have some  red giant and white dwarf stars and Messier 67 does have some anomalous blue stragglers but the above images clearly demonstrate the dominance of older red stars in Messier 67 and a similar dominance of Messier 44 by younger blue stars. It is worth noting that even though M 67 is one of the oldest open star clusters visible in our galaxy, the average age of its stars are less than the age of our Sun. Open star clusters contain stars that were created in a shared stellar nursery and from the collapse one molecular gas cloud. The stars are held together in the cluster by gravity but over time they are inevitably disrupted by the gravitational affects of matter outside the cluster and subsequently scattered throughout the galactic disk. The estimated mass of M 67 is 1080 solar masses and M 44 has an estimated mass between 500 and 600 solar masses. Distance, as they say, does lend enchantment, so the lower mass M 44 appears much larger to the eye than M 67 when viewed from the Earth. M 44 has an apparent dimension of 95 arc minutes and M 67 has an apparent dimension of 30 arc minutes". - Karl Seguine - Community outreach coordinator - Jodrell Plank Observatory

Credit:Wikipedia