This week we have a look at another of the images from one of our target regions. The young cluster NGC2244, which is surrounded by the Rosette Nebula, is easily visible at the moment in the evening skies. This is one of the few of regions that contains massive stars of spectral type O. It is also slightly further away than the other of our regions, with an estimated distance of just over 1500pc.
The nebulosity is caused by the ionising radiation from the massive stars in the centre of the nebula. The main cluster has now cleared its surroundings from the molecular cloud material it has formed from. However, there is still ongoing star formation in the shell of material that surrounds the cluster. The gas in it has been compressed and a new generation of star formation has been triggered. The majority of the very young stars can be found in the South-East of the nebula – bottom left of the image.
The image itself is a colour composite from a set of wide-field B, V, and R-band images. The red colour hence represents emission from atomic hydrogen.