Editing Cone Nebula (section)

==Description==
The diffuse Cone Nebula, so named because of its apparent shape, lies in the southern part of [[NGC 2264]], the northern part being the magnitude-3.9 [[Christmas Tree Cluster]].  It is in the northern part of [[Monoceros (constellation)|Monoceros]], just north of the midpoint of a line from [[Procyon]] to [[Betelgeuse]].

The cone's shape comes from a dark [[absorption nebula]] consisting of cold molecular hydrogen and dust in front of a faint [[emission nebula]] containing hydrogen ionized by [[S Monocerotis]], the brightest star of NGC 2264.  The faint nebula is approximately seven light-years long (with an apparent length of 10 [[arcminute]]s), and is 2,700 light-years from Earth.

The nebula is part of a much larger star-forming complex—the [[Hubble Space Telescope]] was used to capture images of forming stars in 1997.