The beautiful Rosette Nebula can only be known by its common name, after all, a rose is a rose is a rose. Otherwise with the first discovered star cluster and the later discovered nebulosity, only discovered in parts, it has too many designations--NGC 2237, NGC 2238, NGC 2239, NGC 2244 and NGC 2246, not to mention Caldwell 49, SH 2-275, and CTB 21.

The Rosette is 130 light years across, about five times larger than the Orion Nebula, but likewise about 4 times further away, at 5200 light years. As with the Orion nebula, the Rosette is an intense star former. It contains some extremely hot blue stars: the brightest central stars are spectral class O4V, very rare super hot blue main sequence stars that are much hotter and more massive than our Sun. The two brightest are over 400,000 time more luminous than our Sun, and over 50 times more massive. The radiation, including X-rays, and stellar wind from these stars is responsible for the large central hole that has been blow out of the nebula.

In my image I tried to bring out the blue in the central region, in homage to these intense hot blue stars, trying to push the strong red Halpha regions to the outskirts of the nebulosity. Sky conditions were poor this winter: I did not waste a minute of half decent sky, and certainly not any decent sky as there was none. In the end I was pleased to get something reasonable.

I will not complain, many of us have been trapped by the global cloud lockdown this winter. Let's all hope that all the lockdowns will end soon.