{"id":3887,"date":"2013-12-20T01:00:11","date_gmt":"2013-12-20T11:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/?p=3887"},"modified":"2012-05-03T18:15:36","modified_gmt":"2012-05-04T04:15:36","slug":"postcard-from-the-universe-christmas-tree-cluster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/?p=3887","title":{"rendered":"Postcard from the Universe &#8211; Christmas Tree Cluster"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A seasonally appropriate astrophoto, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.darkerview.com\/scripts\/query.php?NGC2264\">NGC2264<\/a>, also known as the Christmas Tree Cluster. It does have the outline of a tree decorated with stars in place of ornaments. This was shot on the evening of the 23rd from the driveway.<\/p>\n<p>Keeping the exposures short I concentrated on the stars rather than the nebula that fills the region. I am working on the appearance of my stars, attempting to improve my technique. Not sure if I have succeeded here, they are better. I used some Photoshop tricks to preserve the color of the stars in working on the image. Better, but not quite up the the standard I aspire to.<\/p>\n<p>There seem to be a few deep sky objects that are appropriate for the season. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.darkerview.com\/scripts\/query.php?NGC2244\" target=\"_blank\">The Rosette Nebula<\/a> makes a nice wreath, the Christmas Tree, etc. The folks at WISE published a nice infrared <a href=\"http:\/\/news.discovery.com\/space\/big-pic-wise-christmas-wreath-nebula-111223.html\" target=\"_blank\">image of Barnard 3<\/a> that also looks like a wreath. Long winter nights are an excellent time to consider the night sky. Not much else to do, I am on call for the weekend, thus staying home. It is new moon and the recent storms have departed allowing dark skies. May as well take a few more astrophotos.<\/p>\n<p>Mele Kalikimaka!<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_3886\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3886\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/?attachment_id=3886\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-3886\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/NGC2264-20111223.jpg\" alt=\"Christmas Tree Cluster\" title=\"Christmas Tree Cluster\" width=\"600\" height=\"900\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3886\" srcset=\"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/NGC2264-20111223.jpg 600w, https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/NGC2264-20111223-400x600.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 984px) 61vw, (max-width: 1362px) 45vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-3886\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">NGC2264, the Christmas Tree Cluster, a stack of 27 x 1min exposures with the AT6RC and the Canon 20Da<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A seasonally appropriate astrophoto, NGC2264, also known as the Christmas Tree Cluster. It does have the outline of a tree decorated with stars in place of ornaments. This was shot on the evening of the 23rd from the driveway. Keeping the exposures short I concentrated on the stars rather than the nebula that fills the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/?p=3887\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Postcard from the Universe &#8211; Christmas Tree Cluster&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[393,370,394],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3887"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3887\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}