Well to the east of the winter Milky Way, which is full of open clusters large and small, one of the largest open clusters can be found in the constellation Hydra, just across the border with Canis Minor.  In this image made with a 135mm lens, we see that M48 shows a strong concentration toward the center with many stars of equal magnitude.  The only other notable object along this eastern edge of the band of the Milky Way is NGC 2506 in southeastern Monoceros.  M48 is estimated to be 2,500 light years away, while NGC 2506 lies at a distance of 12,700 light years, about five times farther.  Unannotated image.