Cone Nebula and Christmas Tree Cluster, NGC 2264 (Jeff Rothstein)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Monoceros (Mon) · Contains: Christmas Tree Cluster · NGC 2259 · NGC 2264 · The star 15 Mon

Cone Nebula and Christmas Tree Cluster, NGC 2264, Jeff Rothstein

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Cone Nebula and Christmas Tree Cluster, NGC 2264

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Cone Nebula and Christmas Tree Cluster, NGC 2264

NGC 2264 is an emission nebula and active star-forming region in Monoceros, about 2300 light years away. I captured this image with an IDAS NBZ narrowband filter and processed it using Bill Blanshan and Mike Cranfield's Narrowband Normalization process in PixInsight. I selected Mode 2 in NN to retain the red-blue color scheme.

I was struck by how much dust appears despite the full Moon and a relatively short amount of integration time, but we take results as we get them, don't we?

Processing was pretty simple:

DBE
BlurXterminatorv2 Correct Only, then with light correction of stars and Automatic PSF for non-stellar.
NoiseXterminator
Bill's Unlinked Stretch
StarXterminator
Narrowband Normalization
Generalized Hyperbolic Stretch (tweaks to enhance contrast)
LHE
Curves
Rescreen stars
Final touch-up with Curves

Final
Original
C

C

Title: Narrowband Normalization Mode 1

Description: I processed this revision in much the same way I processed the first image, except that I chose Mode 1 in the Narrowband Normalization process. Mode 1 bases the HOO synthetic green channel on Ha and blends in a variable percentage of OIII. This creates a Hubble-like palette. The Hubble palette was created to further scientific research, not for aesthetics. These images bear that out. I find red Ha and blue(ish) OIII more pleasing to the eye than brown, blue and gold.

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Status	Basic success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	8989695
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

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Cone Nebula and Christmas Tree Cluster, NGC 2264

Cone Nebula and Christmas Tree Cluster, NGC 2264

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Cone Nebula and Christmas Tree Cluster, NGC 2264

Cone Nebula and Christmas Tree Cluster, NGC 2264

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