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The Cone Nebula is the small dark cone at the lower center of the image, that is just a fragment of this vast star-forming region, 2600 light-years distant. The Hubble Space Telescope took a closeup image of the cone, shown at the right. My image includes a wider one degree field in the constellation Monoceros (the Unicorn), next to Orion and Gemini. The blood-red glow arises from clouds of hydrogen gas. The ultraviolet light of nearby stars excites the Hydrogen atom's solitary electron to a higher energy level. The Hydrogen atom then releases photons of discrete energy (and thus discrete wavelength) when the gas makes a transition back to a lower energy level. For a more elegant discussion of this process, click here.
Above the Cone Nebula, a loose triangular cluster of stars is called the Christmas Tree cluster. At the top of the image, interstellar dust reflects the light of the brightest stars in the cluster, glowing blue, which has been called the Foxfur Nebula. This blue glow is created by the same mechanism of reflected starlight that causes our own skies to appear blue!
Imaging data: Exposure times were 120 minutes red, 60 minutes green, and 80 minutes blue. An ST2000XM camera was used through a TEC 140 mm refractor at the Hidden Lake Observatory.
Four years earlier, my image of this region was published in Sky and Telescope magazine, accompanying a letter. You can see the article by clicking here.
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