NGC 2264, Cone Nebula / Christmas Tree Cluster, 1 Feb 2013 (David Dearden)

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

NGC 2264, Cone Nebula / Christmas Tree Cluster, 1 Feb 2013, David Dearden

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NGC 2264, Cone Nebula / Christmas Tree Cluster, 1 Feb 2013

Found the Christmas Tree Cluster on the first try in the guide scope. It is easily visible at 1 s exposures, and the star at the "trunk" is especially bright. I'm battling the guiding a bit tonight, but I'm happy to be out as this is the first clear night we've had in about a month. CCD is at 2 °C. Decided to stop & check focus after 16 subs, and found it was way off. It is sure nice to be able to use Nebulosity fine focus and Shoestring Focus to fix things like this from indoors at mid-run. CCD temperature dropped during the run. I imaged until this got into the Spanish Fork light pollution dome a bit too far.

In the C revision, I applied what I have learned about star average white balance and saturation settings. I think it looks better.

In the D revision, I've done some star shrinking, less noise reduction, and a bit of Levels work. I think I like this one a bit better.

Date: 1 Feb 2013

Subject: NGC 2264, Cone Nebula

Scope: AT8IN+Antares 0.5x telereducer

Filter: None

Mount: CG-5 (Synta motors)

Guiding: 9x50 Finder/Guider + DSI Ic + PHD 1.14.0

Camera: DSI IIc (no chiller, T = 2 °C to -2 °C)

Acquisition: Nebulosity 3.1.3, no dither

Exposure: 45 x 300 s

Stacking: Neb 3, bad pixel map, bias included, normalize first, trans+rot align, 1.5 SD stack.

Processing: Neb 3 crop. StarTools 1.3 Develop, HDR:Reveal, Sharp, Deconvolute, Track, Magic:Shrink, Magic:Tighten, Life:Moderate, Rotate:90°. CS6 Astronomy Tools increase star color, AstroFrame.

Original
B
C
Final
D

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Status	Basic success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	7040018
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

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