NGC 2264 - Cone Nebula/Christmas Tree Cluster

[Andy01]

Hi everyone,

First crack at the Christmas Tree Cluster and The Cone Nebula. Taken from a dark sky at Kilmore in rural Victoria, this is 20x10 mins with the SBIG OSC.

Darn tricky object to process too, with what appears to be both reflection and emission nebulas close to one another. Took forever to get the colour and contrast balance somewhere near right.

I suspect some Ha would really help this image, so in the absence of a mono camera, maybe I'll get myself a Ha filter and have a play anyway!

One again thanks for looking and your feedback and comments are always encouraged and most welcome.:thumbsup:

Cheers

Andy

[strongmanmike]

Wow great colour :eyepop: I like that :thumbsup:

Mike

[Andy01]

Thanks Mike, appreciate your feedback! That's one tricky object to process.
I was wondering if I might have pushed it too far? It looks a little dreamy, but maybe that's ok for a Christmas tree :) A

[Ross G]

Great looking photo of a difficult object Andrew.

I love the colour!

Ross.

[stevous67]

Another great image Andy!

I'm looking forward to starting a capture of this object too. You're doing really well!

Steve

[Andy01]

Thanks so much Ross, I wondered if it was a bit overdone, but seems people enjoy it this way as well, thanks for the positive feedback :thumbsup:



Wow, thanks Steve! Really appreciate your feedback and taking the time to comment.

Would love to catch up again, I learned so much last time :thanx:
Cheers
Andy

[mbaddah]

What a cracker of an image. Thanks for sharing

[Andy01]

Hi again,

Just finished revisiting this image.

I reprocessed it from scratch on the big Mac at the studio with calibrated monitors. Managed to pull out a bunch more data, and tone down some of the highlights.

I've been asked to do a short presentation about this pic, so I thought I'd better at least document the process so it looks/sounds like I know what I'm talking about! :scared2:

Anyway, here it is, thanks for looking and I hope you like this version. :)

Cheers
Andy

[Spookyer]

Yep, that looks better