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A close look at the Rosette Nebula

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October 22, 2020

Irregular round, pink cloud with dark center against stair field. — View at EarthSky Community Photos. | William Shaheen captured this telescopic view of the Rosette Nebula on October 15, 2020. He wrote: “A large, colorful and detailed nebula at a distance of 5,200 light-years, the Rosette is one of my favorite objects to photograph.” Thank you, William! Equipment included Mount: Orion HDX110: Telescope: Celestron RASA 11 V2; Camera: ZWO ASI2600MC Pro; Filter: Optolong L-eNhance filter.

The beautiful Rosette Nebula, aka NGC 2237, lies about 5,200 light-years from Earth in the constellation Monoceros the Unicorn, and is about 130 light-years across. It is an emission nebula, meaning that the gases that compose it glow as they are energized by radiation from local stars. The young stars in the nebula’s center are gravitationally bound to each other; they are an open cluster formed together from the material of the nebula.

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Bottom line: A telescopic photo of the Rosette Nebula (NGC 2237), with its central cluster of stars, from EarthSky Community member William Shaheen.

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October 22, 2020

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Claudia Crowley

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Claudia Crowley proofs and edits EarthSky website material. She says working for EarthSky is the most exciting job she's had except one other - which was editing space shuttle documentation at NASA JSC. After writing and editing manuals for Dell and other major companies, she moved to the technical support side during the wild early days of the Internet, and served as general manager at a small wireless ISP. Claudia is a space enthusiast and fan of science.