About

Galaxies & clusters

Messier

Scenic

Nebulas

Solar system

Narrow band

Wide field

Processing

Timeline

Other

 

CAMERA:

Canon 40D baader modified

The Rosette Nebula (also known as Caldwell 49) is a large, circular H II region located near one end of a giant molecular cloud in the Monoceros region of the Milky Way Galaxy. The open cluster NGC 2244 (Caldwell 50) is closely associated with the nebulosity, the stars of the cluster having been formed from the nebula's matter.

The complex has the following NGC designations:

  • NGC 2237 – Part of the nebulous region (Also used to denote whole nebula)
  • NGC 2238 – Part of the nebulous region
  • NGC 2239 – Part of the nebulous region (Discovered by John Herschel)
  • NGC 2244 – The open cluster within the nebula (Discovered by John Flamsteed in 1690)
  • NGC 2246 – Part of the nebulous region

The cluster and nebula lie at a distance of some 5,200 light years from Earth (although estimates of the distance vary considerably) and measure roughly 130 light years in diameter. The radiation from the young stars excite the atoms in the nebula, causing them to emit radiation themselves producing the emission nebula we see. The mass of the nebula is estimated to be around 10,000 solar masses.

It is believed that stellar winds from a group of O and B stars are exerting pressure on interstellar clouds to cause compression, followed by star formation in the nebula. This star formation is currently still ongoing.

A survey of the nebula with the Chandra X-ray Observatory in 2001 has revealed the presence of very hot, young stars at the core of the Rosette Nebula. These stars have heated the surrounding gas to a temperature in the order of 6 million Kelvin causing them to emit copious amounts of X-rays.

The text above is taken from Wikipedia.

The Halpha regions extending from the Rosette down and leftwards makes up the beginning (or end?) of the Monoceros loop, going from the Rosette to the Cone nebula.

The processing of this image was difficult from a star point of view. As I stretched the image got completely filled with stars, hiding the nebula. The trick was to remove the stars before stretching and then add the star layer below the non-star layer and blend using lighten (in PS CS5).

The following software has been used. MaximDL (image acquisition), CCDStack (calibration and de-convolution), PixInsight (cropping, background correction, colour corrections) and Photoshop CS5 (all the rest, incl Noel Carbonis Astronomy Tools).

Since this object is dominated by H alpha I used the red channel as the luminance when doing the LRGB combine after CCDStack calibration. The image was processed in January 2011, more than two years after it was taken.

An enlarged image (50% of original) can be viewed here.

 

LENS/OTA:

Canon 200mm

MOUNT: 

Astrotrac

IMAGE:

ISO1600

18x3min + 146x2min = 5hr 46mind

FILTER:

Astronomik CLS

GUIDING:

None

GUIDE SCOPE:

None

GUIDE CAMERA:

None

CALIBRATION:

Flats and Darks

DATE:

Dec, 2008

LOCATION:

Δlta, Sweden

 

 

 

 

 

 

   
     

Copyright: All images © 2008 Matts Sporre. All Rights Reserved