The Rosette Nebula (also known as Caldwell 49) is a large, spherical (circular in appearance), H II region located near one end of a giant molecular cloud in the Monoceros region of the Milky Way Galaxy.
This cluster has several O-type stars, super hot stars that generate large amounts of radiation and stellar wind.
The age of this cluster has been estimated to be less than 5 million years and its two brightest stars are 400,000 times brighter than our Sun, and approximately 50 times more massive.
The cluster and nebula lies at a distance of some 5,000 light-years away and measures roughly 50 light years in diameter.
Equipment:
- Vixen AX103S 103mm f/8.0 ED Apochromatic Refractor telescope.
- Avalon Linear Fast Reverse Mount.
- QSI 683 CCD camera, Kodak KAF-8300 8.3 mega-pixel sensor cooled to -25 °C.
- Astronomik L-RGB, Astrodon 5nm Ha and Astrodon 3nm Oiii filters.
Image exposure (3+ hours in total):
- 10 x 20min Ha.
