Mars continues to zip across Cancer, now almost at the Beehive Cluster, M44, within the four stars of the manger.  It is now at magnitude +0.90, still brighter than Castor and Pollux.  This image happens to have a nice view of a cool carbon star, X Cancri, located to the east of the Praesepe, the manger asterism that encloses the Beehive Cluster, M44.  Its spectral class is C6ii, which is in the far red part of the spectrum, as we would expect.  In a telescope, it displays a deep red color.  Unannotated image.