NGC 2264 - The Christmas Tree & Cone Nebulae in Monoceros (Fran D.)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Monoceros (Mon) · Contains: 15 S Mon · B39 · Christmas Tree Cluster · HD260413 · HD260530 · HD260594 · HD260664 · HD260665 · HD260759 · HD260792 · HD260821 · HD260931 · HD260985 · HD261014 · HD261050 · HD261051 · HD261052 · HD261053 · HD261083 · HD261084 · HD261085 · HD261086 · HD261141 · HD261170 · HD261172 · HD261199 · HD261200 · HD261230 · HD261261 · HD261304 · And 99 more.

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NGC 2264 - The Christmas Tree & Cone Nebulae in Monoceros

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NGC 2264 - The Christmas Tree & Cone Nebulae in Monoceros

NGC 2264 refers to both the Cone Nebula and the open star cluster The Christmas Tree Cluster in the same catalog entry. This area of the sky in Monoceros is an active star forming region. The Christmas Tree cluster consists of many young stars, some of which are obscured from our vision by layers of interstellar dust. While the Cone Nebula is easy to see in the lower left side of my image, the Christmas Tree Cluster is a bit more difficult to discern. The large star at the head of the cone becomes the top of the Christmas tree. With this star as the apex of a large triangle, one can see the sides of the triangular shaped tree extending away to the right of the image, with the very bright blue star 15 Monocerotis forming part of the trunk of the tree.

The image also shows two interesting named but uncatalogued features. One is referred to as the Fox Fur Nebula (located below and to the right of 15 Monoceritis). The other is called the Snowflake Cluster, an active star forming open cluster just below and to the left of 15 Monocereotis, located in a patch of very light reddish-pink, almost white nebulosity. If one looks closely the stars and gases have formed a pinwheel shape. Young stars have formed long the spokes of the pinwheels, only a few of which are visible at my imaging resolution.

Narrowband imaging
Central USA
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The refractors!
Cloudy Nights

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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.
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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	8707688
PixInsight job	GHGQAUGHIDK1NGHPGOT272UZHH2UXC6B
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	06h39m54s.808
RA (top/left)	06h44m33s.476
RA (top/right)	06h40m15s.510
RA (bottom/right)	06h35m15s.523
RA (bottom/left)	06h39m34s.787

Dec (center)	+10°14′21″.00
Dec (top/left)	+09°39′53″.19
Dec (top/right)	+11°30′52″.26
Dec (bottom/right)	+10°48′28″.53
Dec (bottom/left)	+08°57′40″.47

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NGC 2264 - The Christmas Tree & Cone Nebulae in Monoceros

NGC 2264 - The Christmas Tree & Cone Nebulae in Monoceros

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NGC 2264 - The Christmas Tree & Cone Nebulae in Monoceros

NGC 2264 - The Christmas Tree & Cone Nebulae in Monoceros

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