THE ROSETTE NEBULA
I have posted other images of this nebula in the past. But, I try new images every year just because I hope I am getting more skilled at image collection and processing. This image represents my best work so far on this object.
I collected just over 3 hours of sub-exposures to make this image, It was the night prior to the occultation of Mars by the Moon on the morning of February 18, 2020. The site was my friend John Briggs’ observatory, just north of Magdalena, New Mexico.
The Rosette Nebula is about 5,000 light years from earth. Turn left at Orion to find it. Even in a dark place It is not visible to the unaided eye, but you will be able to see the bright star cluster in the center with binoculars. Even with a moderate sized telescope, it will not appear red in color. Long integrations with a camera and small telescope reveal the beauty that is within and surrounding this object.
The nebula’s full extent has an area 4-5 times that of the Moon. It is about 130 light years in diameter and thought to be spherical in shape. Astronomers estimate the materials in the nebula have a total mass about 10,000 times that of our Sun. An open cluster of bright (they are typically 5 times hotter than our sun), young stars thought to have formed from the nebula itself (stellar rebirth) is located near the center of the nebula and floods the nebula with ultraviolet light that excites gases in the nebula causing emissions captured by the camera. Also the thinned area in the center of the nebula is thought to be caused by stellar winds from that group of stars. The stellar winds exert pressure on the nebular cloud, compress it, and initiate gravitational collapse and stellar formation. Astronomers estimate this process has been ongoing for about 4 million years
The bright red regions are emissions from ionized hydrogen, the most abundant element in the nebula. The bluish regions are from oxygen atoms that have lost two electrons (doubly ionized) by the powerful ultra-violet from those hot, young stars.
This image (and the following 100% crop image) was assembled from 46 4 minute exposures made with a Takahashi 180 ED telescope, Nikon D850 camera on a computer controlled autoguided NEQ6 German equatorial mount. The images were calibrated, debarred, registered, photometrically color calibrated and integrated in PixInsight. Final adjustments and cropping done in Lightroom. No noise reduction was performed. The quality of the image speaks mostly to the dark, light pollution free sky at the FOAH observatory in Magdalena, NM.
If you can, view zoomed in on a large monitor.
THE ROSETTE NEBULA
I have posted other images of this nebula in the past. But, I try new images every year just because I hope I am getting more skilled at image collection and processing. This image represents my best work so far on this object.
I collected just over 3 hours of sub-exposures to make this image, It was the night prior to the occultation of Mars by the Moon on the morning of February 18, 2020. The site was my friend John Briggs’ observatory, just north of Magdalena, New Mexico.
The Rosette Nebula is about 5,000 light years from earth. Turn left at Orion to find it. Even in a dark place It is not visible to the unaided eye, but you will be able to see the bright star cluster in the center with binoculars. Even with a moderate sized telescope, it will not appear red in color. Long integrations with a camera and small telescope reveal the beauty that is within and surrounding this object.
The nebula’s full extent has an area 4-5 times that of the Moon. It is about 130 light years in diameter and thought to be spherical in shape. Astronomers estimate the materials in the nebula have a total mass about 10,000 times that of our Sun. An open cluster of bright (they are typically 5 times hotter than our sun), young stars thought to have formed from the nebula itself (stellar rebirth) is located near the center of the nebula and floods the nebula with ultraviolet light that excites gases in the nebula causing emissions captured by the camera. Also the thinned area in the center of the nebula is thought to be caused by stellar winds from that group of stars. The stellar winds exert pressure on the nebular cloud, compress it, and initiate gravitational collapse and stellar formation. Astronomers estimate this process has been ongoing for about 4 million years
The bright red regions are emissions from ionized hydrogen, the most abundant element in the nebula. The bluish regions are from oxygen atoms that have lost two electrons (doubly ionized) by the powerful ultra-violet from those hot, young stars.
This image (and the following 100% crop image) was assembled from 46 4 minute exposures made with a Takahashi 180 ED telescope, Nikon D850 camera on a computer controlled autoguided NEQ6 German equatorial mount. The images were calibrated, debarred, registered, photometrically color calibrated and integrated in PixInsight. Final adjustments and cropping done in Lightroom. No noise reduction was performed. The quality of the image speaks mostly to the dark, light pollution free sky at the FOAH observatory in Magdalena, NM.
If you can, view zoomed in on a large monitor.