Date Posted: 10/12/2025
Date Taken: 1/10/2015, 1/16/2015 (Cone Portion)
Date Taken: 1/2/2016, 1/5/2016, 1/29/2016 (Fox Fur portion)
Scope: Planewave CDK 12.5 f/8, 2541mm
Camera: SBIG STL-11000 with Astrodon Tru-Balance E-Series Gen2 filters
Temp: -15C
Mount: Losmandy Titan
Guiding: SSAG, Celestron 80mm guide scope, 600mm.
Exposure: LRGB 150:80:80:80 (L) 5 min unbinned, RGB 5min , binned 2x2 (Cone Portion)
Exposure: LRGB 225:135:140:140 (L) 5 min unbinned, RGB 5min , binned 2x2 (Cone Portion)

Calibrated and Stacked with CCDStack2; RGB combine and DDP with MaximDL. Processed with CS4.

NGC 2264 actually denotes two distinct objects in a much larger complex; the Cone Nebula, which is the brighter nebula at the right tip if the larger nebula, and the Christmas Tree Cluster, which is an open cluster of stars immediately to the left of the Cone Nebula's tip. The larger nebula complex also includes the Fox Fur Nebula, the bluish reflection nebula just right of center. Just below the Fox Fur Nebula you can also see the Snowflake Cluster. The Christmas Tree Nebula denotes the entire larger nebula complex, resembling a Christmas tree (on its side in this image). It contains many interesting arcs and filaments of hydrogen gas sculpted by stellar winds from stars within the nebula. It is located in the winter constellation Monoceros, and is about 2350 light years away.

This image was actually a happy accident. I noticed considerable overlap between two previous images (Cone nebula and Fox Fur nebula), and decided to combine them in a mosaic.

This is a partial re-process of the original mosaic image created in 2016.