Rosette Nebula is a star nursery that lies in the nearby arm of the Milky Way, our galaxy, just five thousand light-years away. The matter in the nebula gravitates into dense and dark structures called Bok globules. You can see them as dark silhouettes against the bright nebulosity. Inside that globules, it gets so hot that the matter turns into a newborn star. The star's light then ionises the surrounding gas to emit the light we see. And the process goes on and on.

This is the largest and most extended project I have ever done. It took me several months to collect 36 hours of data, and more than 15 hours were thrown away due to poor quality. This is a mosaic of 9 individual frames, hence the resolution. In this photo, the stars were removed to reveal the full power of cosmic beauty.

Imaged using Altair 183C camera, SkyWatcher 150PDS telescope on the EQ3 mount, guided. 36 hours of exposition. Stacked in APP and post-processed in GIMP.