Dr Jean Dean, 61, took the image with a specialized telescope one December night in the backyard of his home on Guernsey Island. The giant cone-shaped clouds of gas and dust are lit by thousands of twinkling stars, creating a meaningful image in the Christmas season.

“To take this beautiful photo, I sat in the garden for 5 hours straight. It was very cold!”, Dean said. “NGC 2264 is a very lovely nebula! Just like the meaning of Christmas, the anniversary of the birth of Jesus, the red dust clouds you see are where new stars are born.”

NGC 2264 is also known as the Christmas Tree Cluster and the Cone Nebula. It is located in the constellation Unicorn about 2,600 light-years from Earth. This emission nebula cannot be seen with the naked eye due to the lack of massive stars.