The sky around Christmas Tree Cluster and Cone Nebula at true scale, north up and east left, with stars to magnitude 8. The circles show the field of a low-power eyepiece and of 10×50 binoculars.
Christmas Tree Cluster and Cone Nebula is a cluster in Monoceros, 2,280 light-years away
Christmas Tree Cluster and Cone Nebula (NGC 2264, Herschel 400 no. 80, LBN 911, OCL 495, Sh2-273) is a cluster in the constellation Monoceros, 2,280 light-years away. It shines at magnitude 3.9 and spans 11′ of sky, about 7.6 light-years across. It is visible to the naked eye from a dark site, and it is highest in the evening sky in February.
Open cluster: a loose group of a few dozen to a few thousand young stars born together from one cloud of gas. They drift apart over a few hundred million years and lie in the disk of the Milky Way.
Christmas Tree Cluster and Cone Nebula is Sh2-273 in the Sharpless catalog
Stewart Sharpless listed it in his catalog of H II regions (1959), drawn from the red and blue prints of the Palomar Sky Survey. He rated each region's brightness on a scale of 1 to 3; Sh2-273 is bright (class 3 of 3). It is also listed as LBN 911, Cr 112, Mel 49.
Finding Christmas Tree Cluster and Cone Nebula from Alzirr
Christmas Tree Cluster and Cone Nebula lies 3.2° south of Alzirr, the magnitude 3.4 star. Three fingers held at arm's length cover about 5°.
Christmas Tree Cluster and Cone Nebula is highest in the evening in February
The chart gives its height above the horizon at 9 pm through the year, from 60°N to 40°S. It can be seen from the whole northern hemisphere and south to about 80°S.
Christmas Tree Cluster and Cone Nebula is 2,280 light-years away
The light seen from Christmas Tree Cluster and Cone Nebula tonight left it about 2,280 years ago. It ranks 19 of 398 by distance among the Herschel 400 objects. Distance source: Gaia DR3, Hunt and Reffert 2023.
Objects within 6° of Christmas Tree Cluster and Cone Nebula
