Horsehead and Flame Nebula (Minos Kritikos)

Horsehead and Flame Nebula

One of the most popular deep sky objects is the Famous Horsehead Nebula, which is a dark nebulae in the constellation Orion, 1500 light years from earth. It's uniquely identifiable shape of flowing lanes of dark dust and gas bear resemblance to a horse’s head. Also a stellar nursery, this nebulae contains more than 100 hundred organic and inorganic gases, and dust that is composed of large, complex molecules. The red glow is mostly due to ionizing hydrogen gas from the emission nebulae from behind the dark nebula, illuminated by the multiple bright (total magnitude 3.8) star system called Sigma Orionis. The darkness of the horse’s head is caused by the thick dust that obscures the light coming from the stars behind it. To its bottom left, is the Flame nebula, also a stellar nursery at around 1200 light years away, it is bursting with orange-tinged nebulosity from its ionizing hydrogen gas and is streaking with filaments of dark dust that lie in front of the emission nebula, reminiscent of a flame. Taken under light polluted skies from an obnoxiously bright neighbouring business and a half-moon right around the corner of the target, this 1 hour stacked and calibrated image shows not only these two exquisite nebulae, but also two very bright stars exhibiting diffraction rings on my lens. In the centre, we see the star Alnitak (Zeta Orionis), a scorching blue supergiant with a visual magnitude of 2 and is one of a tripartite star in Orion’s Belt. Alnitak is a binary star system 33 times more massive and 21,000 times brighter than our sun. On the top left is Alnilam (Epsilon Orionis), the second star in Orion’s Belt, also a large bright (variable magnitude 1.64-1.74) blue supergiant at 2000 light years from earth, it is 500,000 times more luminous than our sun, and 34 times more massive. PM me if you need any further info.

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	1480818
PixInsight job	NHKZ0BQM7Z080RKNLQTWGJVNP6YV9FIV
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

RA (center)	05h40m45s.14
RA (top/left)	05h33m43s.10
RA (top/right)	05h34m56s.100
RA (bottom/right)	05h47m48s.26
RA (bottom/left)	05h46m32s.39

Dec (center)	-01°56′28″.6
Dec (top/left)	+00°21′42″.10
Dec (top/right)	-04°27′03″.5
Dec (bottom/right)	-04°14′34″.0
Dec (bottom/left)	+00°34′18″.8

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