NGC 2244: An Irritated Rosette? (Alex Woronow)

NGC 2244: An Irritated Rosette?

NGC 2244: An Irritated Rosette?

OTA: Unspecified 160mm f/5 Refractor
Camera: ZWO 6200C (OSC)
Observatory: iTelescope
Date of Capture: Feb '24
Date of Processing: Mar '24

Exposures Used:
86 x 600 sec
Total Exposure time: 14.3 hours
Image Width: 1d 45'

Processing Tools:
1.   Commercial: PixInsight, Topaz, Radiant Photo
2.   Pixinsight Addons: NoiseXTerminator, BlurXTerminator, StarXTerminator
3.   My Scripts: NB_Assistant, AC_Restar, Subframe Weighting Tool (Excel w/ J. Hunt), ColorTweaker

Target Description:
Formally, "NGC 2244" refers to the cluster of young massive stars at the center of this cloud. The ignition of those stars generated intense winds that pushed their birth cloud away from this nursery, and this action caused the ionization and emissions that the cloud now displays. UV radiation from the young stars also stimulates emissions in the cloud. Denser cloud areas and areas shielded by those denser are not as exposed to the UV and winds, and they remain dark, often as complexly ornamented stringers of black.

Processing Description:
These data were free from iTelescope to subscribers. The telescope used to capture the subs is not described on their site, other than its apateur.

I debayered the images to super-pixels to reduce the image sizes but re-enlarged them with a 2x drizzle integration. The stacks, color-calibrated, tended toward the yellow/orange. I liked the dramatic impact brought to the subject by those tones, so I moderated my adjustments away from those of the color calibration.

Maybe because of my unfamiliarity with OSC images, they take me about twice as long to process as monotone RGB images. However, to get more data from this instrument, I will probably learn to live with that inconvenience. (BTW, I have no association with iTelescope other than being a customer.)

Target Statistics:
Distance:
Apparent Magnitude:
Absolute Magnitude:
Average Surface Magnitude:
Apparent DSO Span:
Pixel Span at Target:

Alex Woronow

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	9390343
PixInsight job	XJMTXSM5HAE9T1AKI9G2WF40D78OSR1T
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	06h31m55s.714
RA (top/left)	06h34m14s.912
RA (top/right)	06h34m18s.406
RA (bottom/right)	06h29m36s.260
RA (bottom/left)	06h29m33s.161

Dec (center)	+04°58′23″.00
Dec (top/left)	+04°05′25″.28
Dec (top/right)	+05°50′50″.97
Dec (bottom/right)	+05°51′18″.20
Dec (bottom/left)	+04°05′55″.38

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