The Cone Nebula Region
The most famous feature of these images is on the right, the so-called Cone Nebula (the "cone" is on its
side in this image). It’s about 2,500 light-years away in the constellation Monoceros. To give you an
idea of scale, the cone shaped structure is around 7 light-years long. The Cone Nebula's reddish color
is produced by glowing hydrogen gas, as is the case with the other reddish areas in this image. Further
to the left, near the center of the image, is NGC2264, the Christmas Tree Cluster. The brightest star in
the image is the star on top of the tree and the rest of the cluster forms the lights of the tree. Up and to
the left of the brightest star is an area known as the Fox Fur Nebula. It is thought to originate from fine
interstellar dust reacting in complex ways with the energetic light and hot gas being expelled by the
young stars. Obviously, there is a lot going on in this region of the sky. This color image was created
from multiple sub-frames totaling about 1.5 hours using a Canon 20D. The grayscale image is from an
SBIG ST-10XME astronomical camera using a hydrogen - alpha filter. The total exposure was about 2
hours. One advantage of hydrogen - alpha imaging is the great detail provided.
It is possible to combine both worlds.... color and the higher resolution of H-alpha. The result is a color
image with better resolution. You can see before and after here.
side in this image). It’s about 2,500 light-years away in the constellation Monoceros. To give you an
idea of scale, the cone shaped structure is around 7 light-years long. The Cone Nebula's reddish color
is produced by glowing hydrogen gas, as is the case with the other reddish areas in this image. Further
to the left, near the center of the image, is NGC2264, the Christmas Tree Cluster. The brightest star in
the image is the star on top of the tree and the rest of the cluster forms the lights of the tree. Up and to
the left of the brightest star is an area known as the Fox Fur Nebula. It is thought to originate from fine
interstellar dust reacting in complex ways with the energetic light and hot gas being expelled by the
young stars. Obviously, there is a lot going on in this region of the sky. This color image was created
from multiple sub-frames totaling about 1.5 hours using a Canon 20D. The grayscale image is from an
SBIG ST-10XME astronomical camera using a hydrogen - alpha filter. The total exposure was about 2
hours. One advantage of hydrogen - alpha imaging is the great detail provided.
It is possible to combine both worlds.... color and the higher resolution of H-alpha. The result is a color
image with better resolution. You can see before and after here.
| Color Image from Modified Canon 20D |
Grayscale Image from SBIG ST10 using a Hydrogen - alpha filter