NGC 2264: Cone Nebula / Christmas Tree Cluster; wide-field narrow band (HOO) (rdk_CA)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Monoceros (Mon) · Contains: Christmas Tree Cluster · NGC 2251 · NGC 2259 · NGC 2264 · NGC 2265 · The star 15Mon · The star 16Mon

NGC 2264: Cone Nebula / Christmas Tree Cluster; wide-field narrow band (HOO), rdk_CA

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NGC 2264: Cone Nebula / Christmas Tree Cluster; wide-field narrow band (HOO)

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NGC 2264: Cone Nebula / Christmas Tree Cluster; wide-field narrow band (HOO)

This image is a narrow-band capture of the region surrounding NGC 2264, which contains the Cone Nebula and Christmas Tree Cluster. In addition, NGC 2261 (Hubble's Variable Nebula) can be seen near the bottom of the image. In addition, a few other smaller star clusters can be seen throughout.

For image capture, I used a 135 mm Samyang lens, set at f/2.8, attached to an 80 mm Explore Scientific refractor which I used for guiding. Even with the narrow band filters, I still had significant gradients from light pollution in the raw data. I ended up having to crop the image much more extensively than I had hoped as a result. In post-processing, I mapped Ha → R, 0.1*Ha + 0.9*Oiii → G, and Oiii → B to create the false-color image. I am not totally satisfied with my attempts to process and recombine all of the various components -- hopefully this is something I will improve on with time.

I've always found this nebula to be quite striking -- at some point, I would like to revisit this object to capture a higher resolution image of the Cone Nebula itself!

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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.

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Status	Basic success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	5470891
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
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NGC 2264: Cone Nebula / Christmas Tree Cluster; wide-field narrow band (HOO)

NGC 2264: Cone Nebula / Christmas Tree Cluster; wide-field narrow band (HOO)

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NGC 2264: Cone Nebula / Christmas Tree Cluster; wide-field narrow band (HOO)

NGC 2264: Cone Nebula / Christmas Tree Cluster; wide-field narrow band (HOO)

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