NGC 2264, the Cone Nebula

Emission Nebula
Monoceros
RA 06h 41m 06s
DEC +09° 53′
Size: ~10 arc minutes

cone.JPG

I’ve been trying to get a good observation of the Cone Nebula for way too many years but have come up empty so far. I’ve had some lovely views of the associated Christmas Tree Cluster, and part of the Fox Fur nebulosity, but no visual luck with the Cone. I’ve tried all my nebula filters: Deep Sky, OIII, UHC and h-beta. No luck at all.

I most recently tried for the Cone with my 8 inch f3.3 travel scope from Hawaii at 9000 feet, with the thought that perhaps a small, wide field scope might show it in context better than my larger scope. Nothing doing, even though the sky was quite excellent and views of other objects were exceptional.

The one time I’ve seen the Cone was also from Hawaii at 9000 feet several years ago, through a 24 inch Starmaster scope with the Collins I3 image intensifier eyepiece. Some of the locals had their scopes set up at the Mauna Kea Visitor Center for their monthly star party. But I don’t count this as a visual observation.

Steve Gottlieb, Mel Bartels and I were there for a Meter Class telescope conference and we enjoyed a lovely night at the MKVC with some exceptional astronomers – really, two of them were professionals who worked at the observatories on top of Mauna Kea and happened to enjoy building their own scopes and observing with them.

The Cone stood out well through the I3 eyepiece although it was still rather subtle. We didn’t view the Cone through a regular eyepiece so we didn’t have a chance to compare the un-intensified view, but it was great to finally see the darn thing regardless.

How about you, have you seen the Cone Nebula?

"GIVE IT A GO AND LET US KNOW"