The Christmas Tree Cluster NGC 2264

[Dave882]

Yeah I know you're not supposed to still have the tree up in Feb, but hopefully you'll cut me some slack. I imaged this last week over the 4 evenings of (mostly) clear sky 2,4,6,7Feb using the c14 hyperstar and Antila Triband filter combo.

Pretty stable atmosphere but I was battling a few gremlins in the rig the whole time, and given the extremely hot conditions (just under 30degrees in my concrete jungle till almost midnight) I couldn't get my camera to cool to my usual -10deg, and found a glitch where the cooler would go to 100% but stop cooling altogether until I reset it :confused2:.

The heat, a bit of moon, and the fact I'm shooting braodband into the Sydney CBD light-dome certainly takes a toll, but given the conditions the last few months, I'm really happy to have walked away with 7hrs of data.

There's so much going on in this region - between the cone nebula, the fox fur reflection nebula, the open cluster and a galactic ionised tree. I have to say I'm getting more and more impressed with the Antila Triband RGB filter. I think it suits my hyperstar really well, and brings out quite a bit of the Ha without killing the reflection region. It's just the dimmer Ha regions that could have benefited from some dedicated subs, so I guess that'll be next time.

Small cropped jpg below, but the higher res versions are recommended:

Higher Res Crop (https://storage.googleapis.com/dso-browser.com/astrophotography/picture-20c4dc0df03479c2a5a0ecc93cf7c3d7-original.jpg)
Higher Res Full Frame (https://storage.googleapis.com/dso-browser.com/astrophotography/picture-49be80bb20be1c6938f9b91be2face46-original.jpg)

Details
C14 non edge @f1.9 with the Starizona Hyperstar v3 (f1.9, 680ish mm fl)
EQ8 pro
Asi2600mc pro gain 0
Asi220mm / guidescope
ZWO EAF
ASIAIR pro / APP / PI

Comments and feedback welcome - thanks for looking!

[Startrek]

Dave,
Lovely image mate , you were out on the same nights as my Gabby capture.
I assume your subs were super short at f1.9 ?
That Triband with your 2600MC is certainly a winner
Well done !
Martin

[gregbradley]

Really nice image of a rich Ha area. Very deep.

Greg.

[strongmanmike]

Quite remarkable Dave, reaching only a maximum northerly elevation of 47deg from Padstow and being south of the bulk of the Sydney metropolitan suburbs, means you shot this directly through the full light dome of Sydney for the entirety of the acquisition :eyepop:

Some warts but given the conditions I recon you have done a really great processing job and just for undertaking the mission of pointing an F1.9 scope there you get the honorary title of astroimager aaaand "thrill seeker (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQFK7Fd2O6A)" :D

Mike

[Dave882]

Thanks guys much appreciated!
Mike- that’s gold although sometimes I do question my sanity somwtimes. Yes a few warts indeed… actually the noise was quite oppressive - but with the new noise exterminator v3 released I was able to play around with the settings and mitigate most of it. It’s a very nice improvement over the previous one.
Martin- I actually was runnings 2min subs. With the Antila rgb band passes I’m able to go a bit deeper without blowing the stars out.
Greg- yes I was not expecting to pick up so much Ha for my efforts. It was a nice surprise actually

[Ryderscope]

That’s a super effort David with a resultant fine image :thumbsup:

[Dave882]

Thanks so much Rodney!