Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Orion (Ori)  ·  Contains:  B33  ·  Flame Nebula  ·  Horsehead nebula  ·  IC 434  ·  NGC 2023  ·  Orion B  ·  Sh2-277
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Horsehead Nebula #3, Molly Wakeling
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Horsehead Nebula #3

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
Horsehead Nebula #3, Molly Wakeling
Powered byPixInsight

Horsehead Nebula #3

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My first astro image of 2021 - the Horsehead Nebula!

Okay, to be fair, all the data were taken in November and December 2020, but I just processed it this week 😅 18 hours total exposure!

My color data were...awful, haha. But I managed to get something out of it. No really, you should see the raw images...mostly light pollution and some optical issues.

The Horsehead Nebula is a really cool object. Located just underneath the easternmost star (leftmost here in the northern hemisphere) of Orion's Belt, Alnitak, this region is part of the enormous Orion Molecular Cloud Complex. The horse's head itself is a massive column of light-absorbing dust that happens to sit in front of a brightly-lit emission nebula and star-forming region. The red glow is from hydrogen gas energized not by the bright star in the dust cloud below the Horsehead in this picture, but actually the bright star above the Horsehead. Strong magnetic fields form the gas into the streams visible here.

The Hosehead Nebula is located 1,375 lightyears away, and was discovered by Scottish astronomer Williamina Fleming in 1888 when she saw it on a photographic plate taken at the Harvard College Observatory.

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Horsehead Nebula #3, Molly Wakeling