How to Find and Identify the Zodiac Constellation Cancer

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

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          Go out on an early or mid-spring evening to view Cancer best. It is a spring constellation in the northern hemisphere, visible around 10 o’clock at night. Cancer is composed of dim stars, so it must be a moonless night for your best chance to find it

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     Look to the east and find Leo the Lion and Gemini the Twins. These two Zodiac constellations are much easier to find than Cancer and can be used as a guide as it lies between them. Leo is marked by a backwards sickle, a collection of stars that form the lion’s head. Gemini contains two bright stars side by side, Castor and Pollux. Between them lies Cancer the Crab.
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     Do not expect to see a crab. Cancer is made up of stars that are visible to the naked eye but are not in any way prominent. It will be nearly impossible for a novice to look at the region of the heavens where Cancer is and see a definitive crab. The best way to describe Cancer is as a faint upside-down letter “Y.”
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     Peer at the Praesepe. This is one of the most notable star clusters in all the night sky and gives Cancer its one outstanding feature. From Earth the Praesepe is visible as a fuzzy and hazy patch. It is made up of hundreds of stars and can easily be seen with a pair of binoculars. Also called the Beehive Cluster, the Praesepe has about 350 stars in it. If you follow a line down through Gemini’s Pollux and Castor it will point to the Praesepe, but not directly.
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     Scan Cancer for one more feature, the smaller and fainter open cluster beneath the Praesepe. It is known as M67 and is one of the oldest open clusters known to science. It is estimated to be four billion years old and contains some 500 stars. It will take a sharp eye even under the best circumstances to spot it, but the binoculars will enable you to see it as a fuzzy patch.