Would the Rosette Nebula by any other name look as sweet? Inside the nebula lies an open cluster of bright young stars designated NGC 2244. These stars formed about four million years ago from the nebular material and their winds arising out of these hot stars are clearing a hole in the nebula’s center. Also, ultraviolet light from the hot cluster stars causes the surrounding nebula to glow by the process of ionization. The Rosette Nebula spans about 100 light-years across, lies about 5000 light-years away, and can be seen with a small telescope towards the constellation of the Unicorn (Monoceros), under very dark skies.

This nebula is at least as big as 4 Full Moons. Which creates a problem for me as my telescope’s magnification at 75 times allows me to capture parts of skies that are about a Full Moon’s size. So I had to take 4 images and then merge them. Ideally, I should have taken 9 panels (3×3), so you can see the rose shape better, but, that would have taken really long.

I have taken this image over a total 33 hours (8.25 hours on each panel). There were a total of 13 images of Luminance of each panel of 10 minutes each; 13 images of Ha (Hydrogen Alpha) of 20 minutes each; 7 images of each color of 5 minutes each for each panel.