NGC2264 – The Cone and The Christmas Tree

There is a H-Alpha region, a region full of ionized hydrogen, somewhere between Gemini and Orion, in the constellation of Monoceros. It’s not far from the Rosette Nebula. The ionized hydrogen is the red nebulosities you can see on my image.

The Cone Nebula, so named because of its apparent shape, is a dark nebula made of cold molecular hydrogen and dust in front of the ionized hydrogen.

You can see the Christmas Tree cluster with a binocular. It is formed by the most brilliant star roughly in the center of the image. The rest can be seen only on photos

32 exposures of 5 minutes. 8 darks, 8 flats.
Camera : Canon EOS 1000D unfiltered
Telescope : Takahashi FSQ-106ED refractor.
Mount : Takahashi EM-200 USD3.
Guiding : Orion Starshoot Autoguider on a William Optic Zenithstar 66SD refractor.
Outside temperature : 0.5°C to -3°C
Sensor temperature : 3°C
Software : auto-guiding and acquisition with MaximDL, pre-processing with Iris, processing with photoshop.
Location : Col des Milles Martyrs, France