Instrument

12.5" RCOS @  ~f/9 (2880 mm fl) 0.64 arcsec / pixel.  The Zoomify image scale is 1.28 to 3.33 arcsec / pixel.

Mount

Paramount ME

Camera

SBIG STL-11000 w/ internal filter wheel, AstroDon 6nm Ha Filter

Acquisition Data

2/10/2011 to 3/28/2011 Chino Valley, AZ... with CCDAutoPilot3 & CCDSoft.  AOL guided

Exposure

Hα    570 min. (19 x 30 min. bin 1x1)

Click here for the RGB color image.

Click here for narrow band color mapped images.

Software

• CCDSoft, CCDStack, Photoshop CS and Noel Carboni's actions.

• PixFix32 (pre-beta) to repair column defects.

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

• PhotoShop on-linear stretching.

• Noiseware Pro, a PhotoShop plug-in.

North is to the left.

This is a close up view of an interesting area inside the Rosette Nebula.  NGC 2237-9 are 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.

This image, captured with a hydrogen-alpha filter, shows the extent of the hydrogen gas. In true color, it glows with the red light characteristic of hydrogen atoms recombining with long lost electrons, stripped away (ionized) by energetic starlight.