On Thursday night, I livestreamed telescope views from my backyard on the
Explore Alliance Global Star Party, and one of the targets I showed was the Rosette Nebula, in H-alpha. It came out quite nice, so I saved the live stack and did a little prettification in PixInsight!
This is a live-stacked image consisting of 16x5-minute frames using SharpCap of the core of the Rosette Nebula. This stellar nursery is located 5,200 lightyears away in the constellation Monoceros (next door to Orion), and is enormous -- 130 lightyears across! The hot, young O-type stars in the center have carved out bubble and they're responsible for the intricate shapes of the gas and dust. Most of the gas present is hydrogen, which is energized by the UV light of the young stars and emits on a deep red wavelength.
Details:
Date: 4 February 2021
Location: East Bay area backyard, CA
Object: Rosette Nebula
Attempt: 3
Camera: ZWO ASI1600MM Pro
Telescope: Celestron C8
Accessories: Meade 0.63x focal reducer, ZWO 7-position 2-inch filter wheel, PrimaLuce Lab Esatto focuser, Chroma
3nm Ha 50mm filter
Mount: Paramount MyT
Guide scope: Lumicon OAG
Guide camera: QHY5L-II
Subframes: 16x300s (1h20m)
Gain/ISO: 139
Acquisition method: SharpCap Pro
Stacking program: PixInsight 1.8.8-7
Post-Processing program: PixInsight 1.8.8-7
Darks: 0
Biases: 0
Flats: 0
Temperature: -20C
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