{"id":26838,"date":"2021-11-29T10:40:52","date_gmt":"2021-11-29T10:40:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.skyatnightmagazine.com\/?p=56712"},"modified":"2021-11-29T10:52:10","modified_gmt":"2021-11-29T10:52:10","slug":"christmas-tree-cluster-ngc-2264-glows-a-festive-red","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/rss_feed\/christmas-tree-cluster-ngc-2264-glows-a-festive-red\/","title":{"rendered":"Christmas Tree Cluster: NGC 2264 glows a festive red"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>

By Iain Todd\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Monday, 29 November 2021 at 12:00 am<\/p>

\n\n
\""The\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>\n

This is NGC 2264, an object that consists of both the Cone Nebula and accompanying Christmas Tree Cluster.<\/p>\n

The source of the latter nickname is obvious: it would be difficult to find a more festive-looking deep-sky object, with its glowing red Christmas tree-shaped nebulaic cloud and a star cluster of cosmic baubles.<\/p>\n

Deep within the clouds of gas and dust are the ingredients for producing new stars, which burn a fiercely hot bright blue.\u00a0The red hue in the image is a result of gas clouds glowing as they are hit by ultra-violet light emanating from the newborn stars.<\/p>\n

The region is about 30 lightyears across, and is located in the Monoceros constellation about 2,600 lightyears from Earth, not far in the sky from the Orion constellation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Astronomer William Herschel<\/a> discovered the cluster itself in January 1784, and then went on to locate a section of the glowing cloud about two years later at Christmas time.<\/p>\n

The bright star at the top of the \u2018tree\u2019 is a massive multiple star system that emerged from within the gas and dust a few million years ago, while the dark patch at the bottom of the image is the Cone Nebula<\/a> itself.<\/p>\n

This image was captured using the Wide Field Imager camera attached to the 2.2-metre Max-Planck Society\/ESO telescope at La Silla Observatory, 2,400m high in the Chilean Atacama Desert.<\/p>\n

It took 10 hours to capture all the date required to produce the full picture of the Christmas Tree Cluster.<\/p>\n

Image stats<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Observatory<\/strong> La Silla<\/p>\n

Release date<\/strong>\u00a016 December 2008<\/p>\n

\n
Image credit<\/strong> ESO<\/div>\n<\/div><\/body><\/html>\n
","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Iain Todd Published: Monday, 29 November 2021 at 12:00 am This is NGC 2264, an object that consists of both the Cone Nebula and accompanying Christmas Tree Cluster. The source of the latter nickname is obvious: it would be difficult to find a more festive-looking deep-sky object, with its glowing red Christmas tree-shaped nebulaic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":26839,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"2"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2021\/11\/christmas-tree-cluster-ngc-2264-glows-a-festive-red.jpg",1280,1465,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2021\/11\/christmas-tree-cluster-ngc-2264-glows-a-festive-red-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2021\/11\/christmas-tree-cluster-ngc-2264-glows-a-festive-red-262x300.jpg",262,300,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2021\/11\/christmas-tree-cluster-ngc-2264-glows-a-festive-red-768x879.jpg",768,879,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2021\/11\/christmas-tree-cluster-ngc-2264-glows-a-festive-red-895x1024.jpg",800,915,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2021\/11\/christmas-tree-cluster-ngc-2264-glows-a-festive-red.jpg",1280,1465,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2021\/11\/christmas-tree-cluster-ngc-2264-glows-a-festive-red.jpg",1280,1465,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Iain Todd Published: Monday, 29 November 2021 at 12:00 am This is NGC 2264, an object that consists of both the Cone Nebula and accompanying Christmas Tree Cluster. The source of the latter nickname is obvious: it would be difficult to find a more festive-looking deep-sky object, with its glowing red Christmas tree-shaped nebulaic…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/26838"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}