It has been a long time since my last post! With a cloudy winter and a couple of missed clear nights I have not been out at the telescope much. Even in the Fall, several nights did not produce anything worth processing. Soooo….
Finally had several clear nights to get set up and back in action. First night had a few clouds and managed to get polar alignment and software updates taken care of. The next night was lot very clear in the first part of the night so I gave up right away. Last night however the sky was clear, the dew dropped early with the fast temperature drop, and by the time I got out to uncover the scope conditions were very good. Even though the Rosette was going to cross the meridian, I lit it run without flipping for nearly two hours. The following image was the result of 15 six minute subs with the sensor readout at 2 degrees Celsius for most of the subs. Air temperature was around 15 Fahrenheit. Even though this target was somewhat low in the southern sky it showed well in the subs and I was pleased with the result.
5000 light years away, the Rosette Nebula contains a cluster of 2500 young stars formed from the cloud. The most active region has plasma thought to be 100 to 1000 times hotter than a typical nebula we see as red light from hydrogen emissions. This nebula is some 130 light years across.
