Not so happy Christmas tree nebula....

[Andymac79]

I thought I would get all festive with the Christmas tree nebula, bit of a disaster really.

Over cropped, poor processing, stars are trailing, out of focus, poor lens.....

200mm f4 lens at about f5.6

ISO 1600

64 x 120 secs

64 darks

Canon 1000d

EQ3 2

[Astrosurf]

If I'm correct, the Christmas Tree Nebula is an emission neb. Is your camera modded so it can register IR? Also, as I'm sure you know your tracking was a bit off, and I wonder if you would have needed longer exposures. I still have a loooong way to go with understanding imaging. I'm sure soomeone will be along to help.

Alexxx

[Capricorn]

The name is a bit misleading it would appear.

It is a combination of 2 or more features: The Christmas Tree Cluster and The Cone Nebula, and a couple of other named nebula, Fox fur and Snow flake.

Looks like the "Cluster" bit is dropped and replaced with "Nebula".

What you have is the Christmas Tree Cluster - slightly upper right of centre.

The nebula is an IR object really or at lest very much down the in the red spectrum, and as Alex says if not modified you will cut it out.

[Andymac79]

Typo on my part, I id mean cluster not nebula

[laser_jock99]

Good effort- I've attempted this area a couple of times- my overriding impression is that the emmsison part of the nebula (above the Cone and around the star cluster) is very faint. You will need dark skies and longer exposures to show this one very well.

To give you an idea of the faintness- this photo is a single 20 minute sub @ IS03200, modified camera, 12" F2.9 scope with 7nm Ha filter.

In your image you can certainly see a portion of the 'Fox Fur Nebula' which is a blue reflection nebula and doesn't need a modified DSLR to pick up. In the photo below I used an un-modifed camera and it shows the Fox Fur part okay and some of the red nebula too. Single 300s sub from a dark sky site

[MarsG76]

Definitely this is the Christmas Tree Cluster... As you can see, I think you have a combination of slightly out of focus and tracking is off.

The nebulosity is very faint, as I have discovered recently. I'm trying to image this Cluster and nebula region and there is barely any nebulosity visible in a ISO800 20 minute HAlpha sub... when stacking 10 of them, there is a bit there tho.

[ollypenrice]

Comparing my RGB with my Ha data confirms that this is very, very much stronger in Ha, to which the standard camera isn't sensitive (as Alex said above.)

Oly