The Rosetta nebula is a wonderful winter target located in Monoceros. It has an apparent magnitude of 9.0 and lies 5200 ly from earth and has a diameter of 130 ly. The designation NGC 2244 refers to the open cluster embedded within the nebula. X-ray observation have shown that this is a region of intense star formation. Driven by the weather, this image was taken at a new location (in Austria) on our first tour. Again, a very short visibility window, was quit limiting, still we were very pleased with Hydrogen-alpha emission data on which the image is based. The brightest areas have been pushed towards yellow to differentiate better structures that can be seen in the data. The image is part of the “Flaming Sky” series: Showcase.
Celestron RASA 11″
10Micron GM1000 HPS
SIGMA fp (monochrome)
H-alpha ultra-fast narrowband filter
12 x 15 sec., ISO 1600, F2.2 620mm