Epic nebula 54 EP

Rosette Nebula

RA 97.6682° · Dec 5.0131° · openngc

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges

54 pts · Epic

Epic 78 pts → Anomaly

Star-forming region +14
Bigger on the sky than the full Moon +12
Nebula +8
Has a proper name +8
Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
Bright deep-sky object +6

Total score 54

24 more points to reach Anomaly.

Badges

Nebula · +8
Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
Bright deep-sky object · +6
Has a proper name · +8
Star-forming region · +14
Bigger on the sky than the full Moon · +12

Trivia

What it actually is

What it actually is. An H II region: a cloud of hydrogen being ionised by the ultraviolet flood from hot young stars inside it. Every one is a star factory caught mid-production.

Sense of scale

In perspective. Far away by human standards, yet still a local address inside the Milky Way's spiral arms.

Find it in the sky

How to spot it. At magnitude 6 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Monoceros.
Seen from everywhere. It sits almost on the celestial equator, so it can be seen from essentially anywhere on Earth.
Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around December — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

Verdict. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Getting there

Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 89.6 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
Fastest probe ever. ≈ 8 million years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

constellation: Mon
dist ly: 5096.1875
dso type: HII
mag: 6
name: Rosette Nebula
named: yes
size arcmin: 80

Nearby objects

About Rosette Nebula

Rosette Nebula is an epic nebula. It lies about 5,096.2 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Mon and shines at apparent magnitude 6.

An H II region: a cloud of hydrogen being ionised by the ultraviolet flood from hot young stars inside it. Every one is a star factory caught mid-production.

How to see it

Look for Rosette Nebula in the constellation Mon. At apparent magnitude 6, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, Rosette Nebula is best seen from a dark site away from city lights, and when it is above the horizon depends on your latitude and the time of year. The visibility panel above works out tonight's viewing window for your saved location.

Why Rosette Nebula is an epic nebula

Rosette Nebula scores 54 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 24 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Nebula, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Bright deep-sky object, Has a proper name, Star-forming region and Bigger on the sky than the full Moon — each earned for a real, measurable property of the object. Rarity on Spacedle is never random: the more remarkable an object's astrophysics, the more badges it collects, the higher it scores, and the rarer it ranks.