NGC 2264 : Cone Nebula (HOO bicolor) (rhedden)

NGC 2264 : Cone Nebula (HOO bicolor)

NGC 2264 includes the famous Cone Nebula and the Christmas Tree star cluster in the constellation Monoceros. Due to strong hydrogen-alpha emissions and some oxygen-III emissions, this part of the sky makes a good narrowband project for winter evenings.

This is my third attempt to obtain a respectable image of the Cone. The first two attempts were captured with my C11 EdgeHD at long focal length, and poor seeing degraded the image quality. I am much happier with this version, shot with the Esprit 100ED refractor and the Starizona Apex-L reducer at f/3.6 and 360 mm focal length. I am rarely able to get 13 hours of clear skies to complete a project like this one in the winter months, but 2022 has been very generous with clear skies so far. I cannot say so much about the temperatures, as the ambient temperature was as low as -6 F (-21 C) while I was capturing the data on my backyard patio. I had to run my sensor at -22 C or -24 C so that I could maintain some sort of temperature control.

This image is an HOO bicolor image, but I used Steve Cannistra’s bicolor technique to create a synthetic green channel, which is a multiplication of H*O. I also manipulated the composition of the green channel to impart more of a rusty orange tint to nebula. I was pleasantly surprised when I adjusted the histogram and saw the dramatic colors. The pure HOO version was nearly solid red, and was much less interesting. In this color palette, H-alpha is dark reddish orange, Oiii is nearly white, and the orange regions have overlapping H-alpha and Oiii. Star colors came from the pure HOO version, with the green channel being a blend of H and O created using the channel mixer feature in GIMP.

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Status	Basic success
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Astrometry.net job	5461107
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NGC 2264 : Cone Nebula (HOO bicolor)

NGC 2264 : Cone Nebula (HOO bicolor)

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NGC 2264 : Cone Nebula (HOO bicolor)

NGC 2264 : Cone Nebula (HOO bicolor)

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