NGC 2264 - The Christmas Tree Nebula and the Cone Nebula - Runner up for the worst image in the collection!
Date: March 7, 2020
Cosgrove’s Cosmos Catalog ➤#0021
The Christmas Tree Nebula - I hate this image soooooo much…… (click to enlarge)
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About the Target
NGC2264 - Known as the Christmas Tree Nebula and the Cone nebula. This complex is in the constellation Monoceros and is about 2600 light-years away.
About the Project
I took this on my birthday (March 7) but have not posted it because I was really disappointed. The conditions were not all that great that evening, and I only got 26 x180 second captures. Many of those had to be culled because of cloud coverage. This is a faint object, and you really need many captures to make it look good. So this was a miss. Now that we are all stuck at home, I pulled every image processing trick in the book to get something to look at.
You would think something would be better than nothing, but you could not be more wrong in this case!
May too few subs and the processing was way over the top. The result looks neither natural nor pleasing. Strange round shapes can be seen through the image. I believe these are undercorrected dust donuts that you would not normally see, but some I hit this with the digital hammer - you can see them now!
Kids - don't try this at home...
The Annotated Image
An annotated image of NGC 2264 created by using Pixinsight’s ImageSolver and AnnotateImage Scripts. The image is so bad those scripts decided not to label anything but the bright stars.
The Location in the Sky
IAU/Sky & Telescope Constellation Map of Monoceros - with NGC 2264 marked by the yellow arrow.
More Information
Wikipedia Entry: NGC 2264
Capture Details
Light frames
26 x 180 seconds, bin 1x1 @ -15C, unity gain
Some of these had to be culled due to clouds
Total of < 2 hours
Cal Frames
Not recorded
Capture Hardware
Scope: Astrophysics 130mm Starfire F/8.35 APO Scope: William Optics 132mm f/7.0 FLT APO
Guide Scope: Sharpstar 61EDPHII
Camera: ZWO ASI1600mm-pro with ZWO Filter wheel with ZWO LRGB filter set,
and Astronomiks 6nm Narrowband filter set
Guide Camera: ZWO ASI290Mini
Focus Motor: Pegasus Astro Focus Cube 2
Camera Rotator: Pegasus Astro Falcon
Mount: Ioptron CEM60
Polar Alignment: Polemaster camera
Software
Capture Software: PHD2 Guider, Sequence Generator Pro controller
Image Processing: Deepsky Stacker, Pixinsight, Photoshop - assisted by Coffee, extensive processing indecision and second-guessing, editor regret and much swearing….
During August and September I was out shooting every clear night. I had learned a lot of things but I was also noticing several issues that were causing me problems as I did more imaging. I decided to do something to address those issues….