NGC 2264 (Christmas Tree & Cone Nebula) (Michael Southam)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Monoceros (Mon) · Contains: 15 S Mon · B39 · Christmas Tree Cluster · NGC 2259 · NGC 2264 · Sh2-273 · The star 15Mon

Powered byPixInsight

NGC 2264 (Christmas Tree & Cone Nebula)

Powered byPixInsight

NGC 2264 (Christmas Tree & Cone Nebula)

Late in the season to be imaging the Christmas Tree but I still had just enough hours early in the evening to get a decent amount of data each night.

I started by capturing the luminance data which I stacked and tried 3 separate times to process from start to finish, each time being disappointed with the result. I was so displeased with what I was able to pull out that I wouldn't have published the result. Luckily I got my hands on a narrow band filter late in the month which allowed me a few hours on the target each night until the clouds rolled in. My plan was to stack the resulting frames and overlay on top of the luminance data for added depth but what you see here is 95% narrowband data with the luminance data showing only down a small slither on the right side of the image at the base of the tree that was almost completely black in narrowband. The narrowband data, although much less in terms of exposure time, was far superior in quality over the balance of the image.

My workflow has morphed significantly this month towards Photoshop with only the subframe selection, stacking, noise reduction and a quick stretch happening in PI. The majority of the processing is in PhotoShop with the luminance data being overlaid via blended layers. Topaz Denoise too is a new but valuable addition to my workflow. Experimenting with starbursts for the first time also. They seem to add additional interest but I haven't convinced myself if I like them or not. You be the judge.

AstroBin Platform open discussions community forum
Imaged with APT

Please note: The following tables are updated every 24 hours.

Distribution of astrophotographers

This table shows the number of distinct astrophotographers who have been assigned and IOTD/TP award compared to the total number of images awarded.
	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

Distribution of subject types

This table shows the distribution of awards per subject type, compared to the popularity of images of that subject type.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

Distribution of data sources

This table shows the distribution of awards per data source, compared to the popularity of images acquired from that data source.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
Promotions by Submitters When 3 distinct Submitters promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for Top Pick status. This requirement, in addition to anonymization of images and distribution to only a subset of them, prevents biases and ensures that the best images are selected.
Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	4394544
PixInsight job	YQL5EV7390C3RZDNHVUZTC3YBXURDJOT
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

RA (center)	06h40m19s.47
RA (top/left)	06h43m05s.79
RA (top/right)	06h42m52s.48
RA (bottom/right)	06h37m33s.21
RA (bottom/left)	06h37m47s.47

Dec (center)	+10°04′07″.4
Dec (top/left)	+09°08′49″.9
Dec (top/right)	+11°01′34″.1
Dec (bottom/right)	+10°59′05″.4
Dec (bottom/left)	+09°06′27″.2

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

NGC 2264 (Christmas Tree & Cone Nebula)

NGC 2264 (Christmas Tree & Cone Nebula)

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Sky plot

Histogram

In these public groups

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

NGC 2264 (Christmas Tree & Cone Nebula)

NGC 2264 (Christmas Tree & Cone Nebula)

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Sky plot

Histogram

In these public groups

Notifications

AstroBin is in READ ONLY mode

Sorry :-(

Sorry :-(

Sorry :-(

Are you really sure?

Warning!

Warning!

Are you sure?

Report abuse

Slideshow settings

IOTD/TP stats (last [x] days)

Distribution of astrophotographers

Distribution of subject types

Distribution of data sources

Sorry

Sorry

Share

Upload new revision

Upload uncompressed source (XISF/FITS/PSD/TIFF)

Delete image and all its revisions?

Delete original image?

Delete all other versions?

Delete all revisions?

IOTD/TP stats

The following people like this image

The following people bookmarked this image

Warning

Flag malfunctioning thumbnails

Contains

Remove yourself as a collaborator

Plate-solving information