NGC 2244 Rosette Nebula in Monoceros
RGB-HSO Image with QHY600M (CLICK FOR LARGER IMAGE)

The Rosette Nebula is a large emission nebula surrounding a cluster of young stars (NGC 2244) 5,200 light years distant from Earth and about 130 light years in diameter. The central stars are hot O-type stars that energize the nebula to 6 million K resulting in emission of X-rays and generating stellar winds that compress the surrounding molecular cloud to form new stars.

 This is an composite image formed from a RGB image taken with red, green, and blue filters merged with narrow emission filter images blended in that were taken with Hydrogen alpha (red - 656nm), Sulfur II (green - 672nm ), Oxygen III (blue - 500nm) filters.

Date/Location: March 7 and 8, 2021 Gainesville FL
Telescope: Takahashi Epsilon-130D
Camera/Filters: QHY600M/ QHYCFW3 with Astrodon RGB gen2 filters, Ha, SII, OIII (all 5nm)
Mount: Astro-Physics 1100GTO
Guider: Altair 60mm f/3.75; Lodestar X2
Acquisition/Guiding Program: N.I.N.A. / PHD2
Image processing: PixInsight/Photoshop

Photograph of Imaging Setup