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THE CONE NEBULA - Located at the south end of The Christmas Tree cluster, NGC 2264, The Cone Nebula occupies a very colorful part of the sky about 2,500 light years distant in the direction of the constellation Monoceros: the unicorn. Discovered by William Hershel in 1785, this nebula is part of a larger complex which is an active region of star formation. How The Cone Nebula formed is still something of a mystery. But, most astronomers agree that the reason we can see it is because its dark clouds of dust are blocking the light of the stars and the red emission nebula beyond. One hypothesis holds that the massive star NGC 2264 IRS, seen just off the tip of the cone at the center of my image, is releasing an energetic stream of stellar wind which has sculpted the dark cloud of interstellar dust into its present shape.
In 1997, the infrared camera aboard Hubble Space Telescope imaged an area near the star NGC 2264 IRS. On the left is an image from a ground based telescope. The inset on the right shows the newborn stars a small points of light next to the brighter star at center. The rays appearing in the image are artifacts from the HST optical train. As a child visiting the Hayden Planetarium in New York City, I remember seeing a black and white photograph of the Cone Nebula taken with the 200 inch telescope at Palomar Observatory. Now many years later, I have my own image from that patch of sky.
December 10, 2004 Tres Placitas Observatory, Santa Fe, NM
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