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The Christmas Tree Cluster, also known as NGC 2264, is a well-studied region in the Monoceros (the Unicorn) constellation. The Christmas Tree Cluster, the blue  reflection nebula surrounding bright stars, was so named because it looks like a tree in visible light. The nebula is roughly 2,500 light-years away.
Atop the image the well known Cone Nebula is also visible. The Cone Nebula region clearly contains much dust which blocks light from the emission nebula and open cluster NGC 2264 behind it.
The Fox Fur Nebula has a strange shape originate from fine interstellar dust reacting in complex ways with the energetic light and hot gas being expelled by the young stars.

Remarkable features Click the image to view and interact with the hi-res image. NGC 2264 is the Christmas Tree Cluster, a large star forming region full of bright stars. It has an apparent size of about 60 arc minutes. 15 monocerotis is a bright blue star, it has a visual magnitude of 4.6. Cone Nebula is probably formed by wind particles from an energetic source blowing past the Bok Globule at the head of the cone. Fox Fur Nebula has a strange shape originate from fine interstellar dust reacting in complex ways with the energetic light and hot gas being expelled by the young stars.   Find Chart The position of Christmas Tree and Cone Nebula (in the red circle) in Monoceros. Image from Cartes du Ciel.

In order to produce the color image seen here, I worked with data coming from 2 different photographic plates taken at Palomar Observatory in 1989 and 1992. The original file is 6,818 × 7,426 pixels with a resolution of about 1 arcsec per pixel. The image show an area of sky large 1.9° × 2.1° (for comparison, the full-Moon is about 0.5° in diameter).
Copyright: Davide De Martin.

Other images of the same celestial field found online

• http://www.noao.edu/noao/staff/rector/digital/xmas/index.html by Travis Rector, NOAO;
• http://www.mistisoftware.com/Astronomy/Nebulae_ngc2264.htm by Jim Misti.

This image is a composite from black and white images taken with the Palomar Observatory's 48-inch (1.2-meter) Samuel Oschin Telescope as a part of the second National Geographic Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS II). The images were recorded on two type of glass photographic plates - one sensitive to red light and the other to blue light and later they were digitized. Credit: Caltech, Palomar Observatory, Digitized Sky Survey.