Horsehead Nebula in Orion (Hap Griffin)

Celestial hemisphere: Southern · Constellation: Orion (Ori) · Contains: Horsehead nebula · IC 434 · NGC 2023

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Horsehead Nebula in Orion

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Horsehead Nebula in Orion

This is the dark nebula known as B33, or more informally, the Horsehead Nebula. It is a cloud of dark dusty material silhouetted against a curtain of glowing hydrogen cataloged as IC-434. While the Horsehead can be viewed visually through large aperture telescopes, it is exceedingly dim and usually requires a very dark sky site and a special filter. On the other hand, it shows up fairly easily in photographs.

The dust of the Horsehead is the remnant of an older generation of stars that long ago died in great nova and supernova blasts spreading the heavy elements they synthesized from primordial hydrogen during their lives back into space. Spectral analysis reveals that the dust is composed largely of silicon, carbon and oxygen. Here we see brand new stars being formed out of this material...one can be seen on the horse's "brow" and another near the tip of its "nose" glowing dimly in red light as they come to life. These new star systems will likely eventually form terrestrial-type planets containing the heavy elements from the dust cloud from which they formed.

The Horsehead figure is actually a dynamic structure formed by the protrusion of a dense area of the larger dust cloud that can be seen at its base. It lies in front of and obscures an area of red glowing hydrogen, IC434. Parts of the base dust cloud can be seen partially obscuring the bright blue reflection nebula NGC2023 at the lower left. The structure is huge...between 12,000 and 13,000 of our own solar systems could be spread out across it's "neck". It is theorized that the Horsehead itself is a "Bok Globule" which will eventually break free from the main cloud and condense into individual stars. B33 lies at a distance of 1500 light years.

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Distribution of astrophotographers

This table shows the number of distinct astrophotographers who have been assigned and IOTD/TP award compared to the total number of images awarded.
	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

Distribution of subject types

This table shows the distribution of awards per subject type, compared to the popularity of images of that subject type.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

Distribution of data sources

This table shows the distribution of awards per data source, compared to the popularity of images acquired from that data source.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
Promotions by Submitters When 3 distinct Submitters promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for Top Pick status. This requirement, in addition to anonymization of images and distribution to only a subset of them, prevents biases and ensures that the best images are selected.
Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

Status	Basic success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	1511812
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

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Horsehead Nebula in Orion

Horsehead Nebula in Orion

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Image Index:

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Horsehead Nebula in Orion

Horsehead Nebula in Orion

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