Cone nebula

[DiscoDuck (Paul)]

NGC 2264 imaged over several nights - a total of 23 x 20 minute shots. I found this a challenge as it was fainter than I expected - not ideal from the suburbs. One of the sessions was very windy, and the guiding suffered. But left those shots in the stack to get the noise down.

Also got that unpleasant image of the RC8's secondary around the bright star at the top. Only ever seen it around Alnitak before - this star is nowhere near that bright. Perhaps just visible only because quite a bit of stretching of the image was needed in this case??

This image is also my first image taken over several sessions (with the exception of some Ha mixes into RGB images). Surprisingly painless to do in PixInsight!

Thanks for looking,
Paul

P.S. Full res is on Astrobin.

[Placidus (Mike and Trish)]

Very good. I remember the Cone Nebula as being surprisingly difficult. The wind buffet doesn't show in your image.

Looks more like a scary cloaked figure than a cone.

Thank you for explaining that the big white ring is an image of the secondary. An old shot of the Flame Nebula had about a dozen of those white rings rubber-stamped through it in a regular grid pattern. Repeated reflections, I guess.

[multiweb (Marc)]

Terrific shot Paul. Love that DSO. It's so faint though.

[DiscoDuck (Paul)]

Thanks Mike and Trish and Marc.

Originally Posted by Placidus

Looks more like a scary cloaked figure than a cone.

Like a Dementor I guess!

[rustigsmed (Russell)]

nice work Paul, great rendition.
if you like its possible to select the mirror reflection in PS and turn down the blue and green which will make it more red and a tad less obvious.

cheers

rusty

[DiscoDuck (Paul)]

Originally Posted by rustigsmed

nice work Paul, great rendition.
if you like its possible to select the mirror reflection in PS and turn down the blue and green which will make it more red and a tad less obvious.

Thanks Rusty. Nice tip.

[gregbradley]

Very nice Paul.

Greg.

[DJT (David)]

Nice Paul, looks good, tricky from the burbs as you say.

20 minute subs are fine but this is RGB? It may well be the cause of the uber reflection? Whats it like with shorter subs, say 10 minutes?

Good shot, mind. Like it a lot

[DiscoDuck (Paul)]

Originally Posted by gregbradley

Very nice Paul.

Thanks Greg.

Originally Posted by DJT

Nice Paul, looks good, tricky from the burbs as you say.

20 minute subs are fine but this is RGB? It may well be the cause of the uber reflection? Whats it like with shorter subs, say 10 minutes?

Good shot, mind. Like it a lot

Thanks David.

Interesting. I tried reducing the exposure times with Alnitak once, and still got the same degree of annoying reflection. Also tried removing the light pollution filter (on the telescope end of the imaging train - so thought it might be the cause), to no avail

There's also an observation on Astrobin that the angle of reflection shows I'm a bit out of collimation. Seems a fair point - I need to check!