It started with an idea that quickly turned into action. The premise was simple: to photograph NGC 2264 (the Christmas Tree Cluster) in the form of collaboration, with several people, and put it all together as one image. The advantage of this solution is the total integration time, which is difficult to collect individually. We managed to gather 8 Polish astrophotography amateurs who were eager to take the action. Each of us owns a slightly different set (telescope, focal length, camera...) which made this project even more difficult. The range of focal lengths used in this project is 250mm - 1000mm. The entire project took us about 2 months (from the idea to the final image) and was collected from Poland and the United Kingdom. What made it even more difficult was coordinating so many people - choosing the object, framing for individual sets and the timing ((preferably near the New Moon). The object itself was not easy. It is low in the sky and quite dark, but rich in all sorts of structures. But weather turned out to be the biggest issue. For most of us November (and the half of December) was completely cloudy and mostly without a clear night sky. We had to hunt for weather windows, and some went (even hundreds of kilometers) to remote locations to be able to contribute. Fortunately, we didn't give up and it paid off - we have a fantastic image.
The final image consists of materials collected with colour cameras for RGB and with Optolong l-extreme filter, mono cameras with Ha/OII/SIII.
It all makes this photo not only a beautiful work, but also connects people with passion and, we hope, can inspire.
Authors:
Andrzej Jankowski,
Dawid Dominiec,
Filip Krystkowiak,
Maciej Zakrzewski,
Marzena Rogozińska,
Robert Węglarek,
Piotr Strama,
Sławomir Matz.
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