What to photograph in December

The Orion Nebula is a stellar nursery you can spot with the naked eye in Orion's sword.

M47 is a bright, loose open cluster in Puppis, just west of M46.

M35 is a large, rich open cluster in Gemini, with a smaller, more distant cluster, NGC 2158, sitting right beside it.

M37 is the richest of the three Auriga open clusters, with thousands of faint stars giving it a salt-and-pepper look.

M38, the Starfish Cluster, is a large open cluster in Auriga with a pattern of stars that look like a starfish or a cross.

M43 is a small, comma-shaped nebula separated from the Orion Nebula (M42) by a dark dust lane.

The Pinwheel Cluster is the smallest of the three bright Auriga open clusters.

The California Nebula is a long, faint emission nebula in Perseus, named for its shape.

The Pleiades are a young open cluster of hot blue stars, wrapped in a veil of reflected blue dust.

The Rosette Nebula is a ring of glowing hydrogen around a young cluster, NGC 2244, in Monoceros.

The Flame Nebula is an emission nebula in Orion, right beside the belt star Alnitak.

M46 is a rich, fairly faint open cluster in Puppis with a small planetary nebula, NGC 2438, that appears to lie inside it, though it is actually in front.

The Cone Nebula and the Christmas Tree Cluster are part of a large star-forming region in Monoceros.

M50, the Heart-Shaped Cluster, is a rich open cluster in Monoceros set against the Milky Way.

M78 is the brightest reflection nebula in the sky, a blue cloud of dust lit by two young stars in Orion.

Thor's Helmet is an emission nebula in Canis Major shaped like a winged helmet, created by the strong wind of a Wolf-Rayet star at its center.

The Crab Nebula is the remains of a star that exploded in the year 1054, recorded by astronomers in China and elsewhere.

The Horsehead Nebula is a dark dust cloud shaped like a horse's head, silhouetted against a faint red glow of hydrogen.