The Cone Nebula is an H II region in the constellation of Monoceros. It was discovered by William Herschel on December 26, 1785, at which time he designated it H V.27. The nebula is located about 830 parsecs or 2,700 light-years away from Earth. The Cone Nebula forms part of the nebulosity surrounding the Christmas Tree Cluster. The designation of NGC 2264 in the New General Catalogue refers to both objects and not the nebula alone. The diffuse Cone Nebula, so named because of its apparent shape, lies in the southern part of NGC 2264, the northern part being the magnitude-3.9 Christmas Tree Cluster. It is in the northern part of Monoceros, just north of the midpoint of a line from Procyon to Betelgeuse.

Imaging cameras: Apogee Aspen 16M
Mounts: Software Bisque Paramount ME
Guiding cameras: SBIG STi
Focal reducers: Takahashi 645 Reducer QE 0.72X
Software: PixInsight, MaximDL 5
Filters: Astrodon Ha 3nm, Astrodon 3nm SII, Astrodon 3nm OIII
Dates: Jan. 27, 2014, Jan. 28, 2014
Frames:
Astrodon 3nm OIII: 10×1200″ bin 1×1
Astrodon 3nm SII: 6×1200″ bin 1×1
Astrodon Ha 3nm: 28×1200″ bin 1×1
Integration: 14.7 hours
Autor: Craig Prost

AstroPhotography of the day by SPONLI

16 February 2014

We select the best works of amateur astrophotographers with details of equipment, shooting processing etc.