Instrument

Takahashi FSQ-106ED @ f/5.0 (530 mm FL)  Captured at 3.5 arcsec/pixel.  Shown resampled to 17.9 arcsec/pixel.

Mount

Paramount ME

Camera

SBIG STL-11000 w/ internal filter wheel, AstroDon Filters

Acquisition Data

12/27/2008 to 1/8/2009 Chino Valley... with CCDAutoPilot3

Exposure

Lum  230 min. (23 x 10 min. bin 1x1)
Ha    300 min. (10 x 30 min. bin 1x1,  6 nm filter)   
RGB  240 min. ( 8 x 10 min. each bin 1x1)

50-50 blend of LRGB & HaGB + an additional overlay of star colors.

Click here for an Ha B&W version
Click here for a narrow band color mapped version

Software

CCDSoft, CCDStack, Photoshop CS w/ the Fits Liberator plugin, Noel Carboni's actions and Russell Croman's GradientXTerminator.

CCDStack to calibrate, register, normalize, data reject & combine sub exposures.

PhotoShop for non-linear stretching and color combine.

Comment

North is to the top.

The Rosette Nebula is a large, circular hydrogen region located near one end of a giant molecular cloud in the Monoceros region of the Milky Way Galaxy. The open cluster, NGC 2244, is closely associated with the nebulosity, the stars having been formed from the nebula's matter. The Nebula is about 100 light-years across and is about 5000 light-years away. The nebula can be seen with a small telescope using low power. With binoculars the wisps of the nebula become clearly visible, if observed under very dark skies.