Astronomy Adventure - NGC 2244

NGC 2244, also known as Caldwell 50, is an open cluster in the constellation Monoceros in the middle of the Rosette Nebula. With darker skies and a better camera you would see this whole cluster surrounded by nebulosity (as seen in the picture from the Hubble telescope below), nebulosity which fueled the creation of this cluster.

Technical Details:

Scope: Starblast 4.5; tracking on

Magnification: ~30x

Camera: iPhone6 using NightCap Pro; ISO 8000; 

Photo: 3x~35secs.

Processing: Stacking best 2 photos on Deep Sky Stacker; adjusted curves and cropped with GIMP

And here is what the cluster and the Rosette look like in a composite photo by the Hubble Space Telescope using hydrogen-alpha, O-III narrowband, and S-II narrowband filters: