Focal Pointe Observatory
Astrophotography by Bob Franke

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NGC 2264 (The Cone Nebula)

Click the image for a wide field display.

 

Instrument

Celestron C11 @  ~f/10.48 (2930 mm fl) 1.26 arcsec / pixel.  Resampled to 1.90 arsec / pixel.

Mount

Paramount ME

Camera

SBIG STL-11000 w/ internal filter wheel, AstroDon Filters

Acquisition Data

12/05/2007 to 12/20/2007  Chino Valley... with CCDAutoPilot3

Exposure

LumHa (HaR)GB combine.  40% of H-Alpha data was combined with the Lum and Red channels, using the Photoshop lighten option.

Lum    340 min.  (34 x 10 bin 2x2)

Ha      300 min. (10 x 30 bin 2x2)
RGB    270 min.  (9 x 10 bin 3x3) each

Software

CCDSoft, Sigma-Clip, Photoshop CS w/ the Fits Liberator plugin, Paint Shop Pro,and Noel Carboni's actions

Comment

North is to the top.

The Cone Nebula, located about 2700 light years away, was discovered by William Herschel on December 26, 1785. Features in the image include red emission from diffuse interstellar hydrogen and wispy filaments of dark dust. The dark Cone Nebula region clearly contains much dust which blocks light from the emission nebula and open cluster NGC 2264 behind it. One hypothesis holds that the Cone Nebula is formed by wind particles from an energetic source blowing past the Bok Globule at the head of the cone.

Source: NASA APOD