Triple APOD - December 27, 2024: The Christmas Tree Cluster (NGC2264) By Hans
Christmas has passed but there's still some room for one more Christmas tree on your feed! Here we have the Christmas Tree Cluster and Cone Nebula, the two objects are collectively referred to as NGC2264.
Notes from Hans on the processing:
2 hours in rgb (Baader UV/IR cut filter) for star colors and 3 hrs with Ha/O3 filter (4nm Altair Astro filter), from Bortle 7/8 skies in Sherwood Park
* Equipment: Televue NP127is with 0.8x reducer (fl 528mm, f/4.2), ASI2600mc pro, HEQ5 mount, Baader 250mm guide scope with ASI174mm mini guide camera
* Acquisition managed by NINA, processing in PixInsight
* Processing: Based on an image published by NASA in 2023, in which I can only assume they mapped the H-alpha channel to green. I did that as well and also mapped the Oxygen III to red and blue. I also was less restrictive on suppressing star halos (i.e. the “tree ornaments”), which led to this image that I like to call the “Merry Christmas Tree Cluster”.
Image down-sampled and compressed for emailing.
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