Lying just above the Witchhead Nebula, and faintly connected to it, is the NGC 1788 cloud complex. Similarities can be seen between the cloud structures here and those of the
Witchhead.
This complex is located 1,300 light-years away in the constellation of Orion at a declination of -3 degrees. NGC 1788 is the main reflection and emission nebula feature at top center. Also known as vdB 33, its nicknames are the Fox Face Nebula and the Flying Bat Nebula. I prefer the Fox Face nickname because the could to which it is attached seems a bit like the body and tail of the fox. The Flying Bat, with its 2 glowing eyes, black body and right wing, takes more imagination to see. I like the contrast of the orange and blue reflection nebula of NGC 1788 with the reddish hydrogen band that arcs vertically on the left side.
In addition to NGC 1788, this region also contains several LBN and LDN nebulae as well as at least 15 background galaxies. The most interesting galaxy object is NGC 1741 at lower right. This object, also known as Arp 259 and Hickson 31, is one of the most interesting objects in the sky, consisting of 7 differently classified galaxies. Please see my post
here which used a setup that captured a bit more detail. Also interesting is the edge-on galaxy PGC 16636, seen at upper right.
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