Back to gallery

NGC 2264 - Xmas Tree Narrowband

80 hours on the Christmas Tree and Cone Nebula

 

My longest integration yet, beating the 61 hours I did on the Seagull and Thor Nebulae.

 

I captured this target throughout November, December, and January. It is NGC 2264, also known as the Christmas Tree cluster and Cone Nebula.

 

I spent close to 82 hours capturing this object, using 6 different filters (RGB for the stars, SHO for the gases).

 

The details are very crisp, the noise is basically non-existent, and the colors came out vibrant! This was a fun project, and I was very surprised to see this range of colors pop up so easily even after a simple channel combination.

 

Full blog post with all info, higher resolution image, and previous attempts here: www.galactic-hunter.com/post/ngc2264

Instagram: galactic.hunter

9,711 views
167 faves
9 comments
Uploaded on February 22, 2023