The Rose or the Skull? NGC 2237

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The Rose or the Skull? NGC 2237

[Public Domain] 3 Jan 2019 Dylan O'Donnell
CATEGORY : Astrophotography
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It’s known as the Rosette nebula, but ever since someone pointed out the very distinct skull features I’ve never been able to unsee the skull or frame it any other way. It even appeared on the cover of an Avenged Sevenfold metal album. I took this image of the famous skull nebula last night and it’s pretty metal. I mean, for astronomers everything (on the periodic table) is a metal, and this is literally true. Most of these metals are formed in the processes related to a stars chemistry and life cycle and every star has a measurable “Metallicity” which sounds like a good name for a Metallica cover band.

Telescope : Celestron 11″ F2 RASA with CGX Mount
19 x 5m Hydrogen Alpha – QHY9 CCD
20 x 60s RGB – QHY12 CCD

Captured in Sequence Generator Pro, Calibrated and Stacked in PixInsight with StarMask and Morphological Transformation star reduction. Then merged as HaRGB in Photoshop CC where additional levels and saturation were applied (More details and tutorials about my processes via my YouTube channel).

So what do you see? The Rose, or the Skull?

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EQUIPMENT DYLAN USED
Here is some of the gear this photo was made with. Click for info