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The Rosette Nebula in Monoceros
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Copyright 2004 Hap Griffin
The Rosette Nebula, NGC 2237, certainly lives up to its name. A glowing cloud of hydrogen 130 light-years across, it is the birthplace of the loose star cluster in its interior (NGC 2244). This nebula is huge...although 2600 light-years distant, it spans roughly a degree of sky, or twice the diameter of the full moon. The central star cluster is visible to the naked eye, but the nebula itself is tough to see even in a telescope without a special optical filter such as a Lumicon UHC.
The dark, stringy objects scattered through the nebula are known as Bok Globules, named after Bart Bok, the astronomer who studied them extensively. They are regions of compressed gas and dust in the first stages of star formation.
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Date/Location:
October 15, 2004 Griffin/Hunter
Observatory Bethune, SC
Instrument: Canon 300D (modified IR filtering) Digital SLR through
Orion ED80 Refractor
Focal Ratio: f4.5 via Meade .63 focal reducer
Guiding: Auto via SBIG ST237 through 10" LX-200
Conditions: Visually clear
Weather: 43 F
Exposure: 21 x 5 minutes @ ISO 800
Filters: Baader UV/IR block
Processing: Focused and captured with DSLRFocus.
RAW to TIFF conversion, dark and flat frame calibration, Digital Development,
resizing and JPEG conversion in ImagesPlus.