For my last astronomy post of 2024, I wanted to close out the holiday with something especially festive – and I think this image of the Christmas Tree Cluster fits the bill.
To be honest, I had no idea what to expect from this region – I thought I’d see a star cluster in the shape of a Christmas tree, but was surprised to see all this nebulosity as well. There’s gas and dust all over the place, including some interesting star formation areas, with the star clusters thrown in for effect. It turns out that the stars in the cluster are very young – only about one or two million years old. Amazingly youthful, when you consider that our sun is already 4.6 billion years of age. The cluster is about 2,300 light years away in the constellation of Monoceros, which is near Orion.
Taking my cue from NASA, I added a significant amount of green to enhance the illusion of the Christmas Tree, while preserving a lot of the surrounding fainter nebulosity. But unlike the NASA video, I refrained from making the stars blink on and off. 🙂
Happy New Year, everyone!
