Sunday 21 January 2018

NGC2244 The Rosette nebula.

NGC2244 The Rosette nebula. This hydrogen emission nebula is a star forming complex that lies in the constellation of Monoceros, 5,200 light years away from us. It covers an area of sky 1.3 degrees with a radius of about 65 light years. I was using my ten inch F4.8 reflector, a Vixen Atlux mount, PHD auto guiding and an Atik 383L mono CCD camera. The total exposure time was sixty minutes for each filter, capturing five minute sub frames with matching dark frames. The data were then combined with flat field frames to reduce the effect of vignetting in the final image. The filters I was using was a set of Astronomik narrowband filters, SII, OIII and H-alpha, using the Hubble palette for the colour data.



NGC 2244. This section of the Rosette nebula was taken under intermittent sky conditions, the sky was changing with clouds, so I was limited with the amount of imaging time. I used the camera on times-two bin mode, increasing the camera's sensitivity by four times. I captured five minute sub frames with dark frame and flat frames, managing to get a total exposure time of 15 minute for each filter.