The Cone Nebula

The Cone Nebula, or NGC 2264, is located about 2700 light years away in the constellation of Monocerous. The "Cone" part of the overall nebula (image centre), is part of a larger structure which includes the Fox Fur nebula (just out of shot to the top right) and Christmas Tree star cluster. The Cone itself is a pillar of star forming dust and gas, where new stars are in the process of creation. The structure has also been referred to as the "Mother and Child" nebula, giving the whole composition something of a festive feel, which is appropriate as it was taken during the Christmas holiday period over 2010/11.
The image is a combination of 10 and 15 minute subs taken through an H-alpha filter, amounting to 2 hours of imaging in total.



Sometimes, completely fortuitously, the process of imaging an object captures something unintended. Such was the case here, when an unexpected artifact apparantly "spoiled" the image by moving across the field of view at a rate that is difficult to spot on individual sub frames and only becomes apparant in the final stack. The video below shows the object moving across the frame. (look closely at the bottom right hand side). It transpires that the object moving across the field is an asteroid named  640 Brambilla, which was apparantly discovered in 1907 by August Kopff. Neat!