Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Scorpius (Sco)  ·  Contains:  11.89  ·  14 Sco)  ·  14 nu. Sco  ·  4 Oph  ·  4 psi Oph  ·  596 Scheila  ·  B40  ·  B41  ·  HD144689  ·  HD144766  ·  HD144925  ·  HD144981  ·  HD145029  ·  HD145100  ·  HD145248  ·  HD145275  ·  HD145294  ·  HD145375  ·  HD145518  ·  HD145519  ·  HD145554  ·  HD145631  ·  HD145790  ·  HD145899  ·  HD145917  ·  HD145997  ·  HD145998  ·  HD146053  ·  HD146068  ·  HD146088  ·  And 25 more.
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The Blue Horsehead Nebula, Darius Kopriva
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The Blue Horsehead Nebula

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
The Blue Horsehead Nebula, Darius Kopriva
Powered byPixInsight

The Blue Horsehead Nebula

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Description

Do you recognize the Horse's Head? This is not the famous Horsehead Nebula in Orion, but a rather pale nebula that takes on a familiar shape only on long exposures. The main part of the molecular cloud complex pictured here is a reflection nebula, cataloged as IC 4592.

Reflection nebulae are composed of very fine dust that normally appears dark, but they can appear quite blue when they reflect light from energetic nearby stars. In this case, much of the reflected light comes from a star in the eye of the horse. This star is part of ν Scorpii, one of the brighter star systems in the constellation Scorpius. A second reflection nebula, designated IC 4601, surrounds two stars to the right of the center of the image.

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The Blue Horsehead Nebula, Darius Kopriva

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Southern Hemisphere Astro