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I've been looking at the night sky for 60 years now and I'm still learning "stuff" about our hobby/avocation/passion.
I've always been intrigued by NGC 2264 "The Christmas Tree cluster" asterism. Contained within it is the Fox Fur nebula and its adjacent neighbor is the Cone nebula. For years I thought the Cone nebula was integral to the Christmas Tree cluster. I finally decided to investigate this area to clarify the naming of these objects.
Here's what I found and learned; the below image shows the sky area around the Cone and Christmas Tree cluster. I used SkyTech X instead of Stellarium because it makes it easier to understand where I'm going with this.
This is the typical presentation of this area of the sky and sometimes our brains can't always make the asterism live up to its name.
But with the simple turning of the image by 180°, it now becomes very evident how that asterism got its name. Oh, and I helped a little bit.
So the next time you're wondering who stole the Christmas Tree, look from a different perspective and you just may see it!
Since I use a RACI diagonal, it reminds me of the Easter Seals tulip logo.
============================================================================= I drink tea, I read books, I look at stars when I'm not cursing clouds. It's what I do. =============================================================================
AT50, AT72EDII, ST80, ST102; Scopetech Zero, AZ-GTi, AZ Pronto; Innorel RT90C, Oberwerk 5000; Orion Giantview 15x70s, Vortex 8x42s, Navy surplus 7x50s, Nikon 10x50s
