A Red Rose in the Sky

Although reminiscent of a planetary nebula, the Rosette Nebula in Monoceros is actually an ionized, or HII, region, shaped like a torus (or ring doughnut). In the 'hole' of the doughnut lies the open cluster NGC 2244, while to the south (right in this image) lies the lesser-known nebula LBN 970.

This image is composed from narrow-band images combined in a pseudo-real-colour palette; the red colour comes from strong hydrogen-line emission.