North is to the right
The Cone Nebula, located about 2700 light years away, was discovered by William Herschel on December 26, 1785. Features in the image include red emission from diffuse interstellar hydrogen and wispy filaments of dark dust. The dark Cone Nebula region clearly contains much dust which blocks light from the emission nebula and open cluster NGC 2264 behind it. One hypothesis holds that the Cone Nebula is formed by wind particles from an energetic source blowing past the Bok Globule at the head of the cone.
Source: NASA APOD.
The image uses the Hubble color palette, with SII, Ha and OIII data mapped to red, green and blue respectively. The color channels are adjusted so the hydrogen (green), sulfur (red) and oxygen (blue) areas are easily identified.
Taken from 12/11/2012 to 2/5/2013 in Chino Valley, AZ
Takahashi FSQ – 106ED w/ an SBIG STF – 8300 camera using Baader filters
Exposure Details
SII 330 min. (22 x 15 min.)
Ha 420 min. (28 x 15 min.)
OIII 420 min. (28 x 15 min.)
For more info see...
http://bf-astro.com/coneNebulaFSQ/coneSHO.htm