The Rosette Nebula: a celestial gift for Valentine’s Day
I recently read an article on the Weather Network website that Toronto recorded one of the cloudiest January in over a decade and as soon as I had a chance to set up my astroimaging gear I did it.
To celebrate Valentine’s Day I decided to image the Rosette Nebula in constellation Monoceros (the Unicorn). Also known as SH2-275 in the Sharpless catalog, or Caldwell 49, it hosts the open cluster NGC2244.
Its distance is 5,000 light-years and its size is approximately 130 light-years.
The position of the nebula can be easily identified, thanks to the presence of some of the brightest stars in the sky: Betelgeuse and Procyon. By connecting these two bright stars with an imaginary line, the Rosette Nebula can be found at about a third of the distance and moving about a degree and a half in a southerly direction.
It is believed that the stellar wind from the young O and B stars in NGC2244 exerts pressure on the interstellar cloud, causing compression, followed by the formation of stars. In fact, many Bok globules, considered to be sites of star formation, are visible inside the Rosette Nebula.
Armed with my trusty narrowband setup – the Explore Scientific ED80 CF APO refractor, my OSC camera (ZWO ASI533MC PRO), and the Optolong L-eXtreme narrowband filter, this time I added a Starfield 1.0x flattener to my optical train.
I spent a good amount of time to achieve an accurate polar alignment (1 arcminute), adequate mount balance and I captured a total of 69 minutes (23×180 seconds). The final result did not disappoint me!
Stay tuned for my next blog post, where I will walk you through my image processing workflow.
P.S.: Happy Valentine’s Day! May the beauty of the cosmos fill your heart with wonder and joy on this special day.
Setup
Location: My backyard in Richmond Hill, ON
Scope: Explore Scientific ED80 CF, Starfield 1.0x Flattener
Mount: Celestron AVX
Guiding camera: ZWO ASI224MC, IR-Cut filter, PHD2
Guide Scope: Orion Deluxe Mini 50mm Guide Scope
Total integration time: 69 minutes (23×180 secs.)
Calibration frames: 20 dark, 10 flat, 100 bias