Astrophotos | JSP Homepage |
As seen from Earth, the Rosette Nebula is about 1 degree in diameter which is about twice the apparent size of the full moon. It is said to be visible to the naked eye from very dark locations but strange as it seems, it is very difficult to see, even in large telescopes, because of the very low surface brightness.
The remaining gas cloud contains the mass of about 10,000 Suns and is still in the process of forming new stars. It has an actual diameter of about 130 light years and is at a distance of about 2600 light years. As a reference, the Milky Way is about 100,000 light years across and the nearest galaxy is about one million light years distant.
BOK GLOBULES
Detail of lower portion of above photo.
Of great interest in the Rosette Nebula are the numerous dark lanes and patches of
obscuring matter, in particular, the so-called Bok Globules. These are the smallest of
the dark spots whose size are on the order of the size of the Solar System. They are
believed to be new stars in the process of formation. The arrow points to one such
globule.
Technical Details of photo:
The object is so large that it completely fills the field of the 16" and the actual edge of the nebula is obscured by the fall-off in illumination at the edges of the field. A better option would have been to center the Bok Globules in the field to maximize their resolution and use the astrograph for the wide field view. Unfortunately, El Nino and now the moon have made more photos impossible this year.