The Fourth Group

The fourth and final group of Messier objects we’ll look at are in Lepus, Canis Major, Monoceros, and Puppis. It’s a bit harder to orient yourself generally to this group of objects, because there’s a lack of nearby bright guide stars. But finding the base of Orion—Rigel and Saiph—and Sirius in Canis Major puts you in the right general area, and those are easy to find. We’ll get into more details later about how to locate the individual objects.

480: Lepus, Canis Major, Monoceros, and Puppis Overview

This fourth group also comprises six Messier Objects, all clusters. There’s a globular cluster, M79, in Lepus, and five open clusters—M41 in Canis Major, M50 in Monoceros, and M46, M47, and M93 in Puppis. We’ll start with M79 in Lepus, which is the only globular cluster among the Winter Messier Objects.