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NGC 2264, The Christmas tree Cluster
and The Cone Nebula, in Monoceros
The naming of this winter scene becomes obvious when the above image is rotated 90 degrees clockwise. The bright star at the right (S [15] Monocerotis) is the base of the tree and the dark conical object at the left is the decoration on the top. The cluster is approximately 3000 ly distant. Although the primary nebula color is hydrogen-alpha-red, there is also a lot of blue reflected light around S-Monocerotis. The Cone nebula is shown at higher resolution in the image below.
| Date | 2003-02-07,-08 (above image) |
| Scope |
Astro-Physics 130 EDFs refractor at f/6 with ST-10XME CCD camera at -15 °C on the A-P 1200 GTO mount. Guided with ST-4 guider on separate guide scope. SBIG CFW-8 filter wheel. |
| Exposure |
Sixteen 5 min exposures R, G, and B at 1x1 binning. Total 240 minutes. |
| Processing |
Raw frames calibrated and debloomed with Wodaski's Debloomer plug-in in MaxIm 3.09. Master R, G, and B frames were then created and the RGB color combine carried out in MaxIm. The image was then imported into Photoshop and adjusted with Levels, Curves, and Color correction. Finally, smoothing was applied with SGBNR. |
| Date | 2003-02-21 (above image) |
| Scope |
RCOS 12.5 inch RC telescope at f/6.8 with ST-10XME CCD camera at -20 °C on the A-P 1200 GTO mount. Guided with the internal guide chip. SBIG CFW-8 filter wheel. |
| Exposure |
Six 10 min R, G, and B exposures at 2x2 binning. Total 180 minutes. |
| Processing |
Raw frames calibrated in MaxIm 3.09. Master R, G, and B frames were then created and the RGB color combine carried out in MaxIm. The image was then imported into Photoshop and adjusted with Levels, Curves, and Color correction. Finally, smoothing was applied with SGBNR. |