Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Monoceros (Mon)  ·  Contains:  Christmas Tree Cluster  ·  NGC 2264  ·  The star 15 Mon
NGC 2264 - Cone Nebula, Mauro Sturaro
NGC 2264 - Cone Nebula
Powered byPixInsight

NGC 2264 - Cone Nebula

NGC 2264 - Cone Nebula, Mauro Sturaro
NGC 2264 - Cone Nebula
Powered byPixInsight

NGC 2264 - Cone Nebula

Equipment

Loading...

Acquisition details

Loading...

Description

The Cone Nebula is part of a larger star-forming region that includes the Christmas Tree Cluster. It is classified as an H II region, a type of emission nebula containing ionized hydrogen.
This area is located in the constellation Monoceros, not far from Orion.
The Cone Nebula resembles a conical pillar of gas and dust. It's a dark nebula, obscuring the light from background stars, with its pointed shape giving it a distinct, easily recognizable appearance. The nebula's darkness is due to the dense dust that absorbs and scatters the light from stars within and behind it.
The Cone Nebula itself is about 7 light-years long and is approximately 2,700 light-years away from Earth.
The nebula is a site of active star formation. The intense ultraviolet radiation from young, hot stars nearby is sculpting the nebula's dust and gas, creating its iconic shape while also giving birth to new stars.
There, additional ultraviolet radiation causes the hydrogen gas to glow, which produces the red halo of light seen around the pillar. A similar process occurs on a much smaller scale to gas surrounding a single star, forming the bow-shaped arc seen near the upper left side of the Cone. This arc, seen previously with the Hubble telescope, is 65 times larger than the diameter of our solar system.
Christmas Tree Cluster is an open cluster of stars, named for its triangular shape that resembles a Christmas tree when observed through a telescope or in long-exposure photographs. It's a relatively young cluster, with its stars having formed from the same molecular cloud as the Cone Nebula.
The cluster contains several bright, young stars, many of which are less than a few million years old. These stars illuminate the gas and dust around them, contributing to the overall glow and complex structure of the region.

I had started photographing the narrow-band region and was counting on both taking many more shots and adding RGB images.
Unfortunately, the weather has worsened and it has been raining or otherwise overcast for days.
So I tried to process what I had collected in HSO because I find this nebula is much better in red and with the Hubble palette it is definitely green. 
Still I am very satisfied, it was essential to use GHS for stretching which allowed all the nebulosity to be highlighted.
(P.S. the O3 signal is very low, maybe for some wispy clouds in the last day)

Comments

Sky plot

Sky plot

Histogram

NGC 2264 - Cone Nebula, Mauro Sturaro