M41 Open Cluster in Canis Major. M41 is also known as the Little Beehive Cluster". It is located south of Sirius and is one of the faintest objects noted in antiquity. Aristotle in 325 BC described it as a star with a tail...It takes a pristine dark sky location to see it with the unaided sky... This cluster is about 2,100 light years from earth. Pentax 105 SHDF APO refractor, Canon 10D, stack of 7x60 sec exposures, Colorado Springs, December 2003.