Flame Nebula (NGC 2024) and Horsehead Nebula (IC 454) are a frequent target for amateur astronomers, featuring a diverse range of structures and physical phenomena.
Flame, an emission nebula, is nursing an open cluster of several hundred new stars which are not visible from under our atmosphere using the visible spectrum, but
this image from Chandra X-Ray and Spitzer Infrared space telescopes reveal what's inside this cocoon.
Horsehead nebula, on the other hand, is a dark nebula part of the huge Orion Molecular Cloud Complex. This area is an active star "factory", where new solar systems can be seen forming in thick swirls of gas and dust. The red background "curtain" behind Horsehead is also ionized hydrogen gas lit by Sigma Orionis. At the bottom-left from the Horsehead Nebula, a reflection nebula can be seen,
NGC 2023. There are also other reflection nebulae in this image: IC 431, IC 432, and IC 435, along with a few molecular clouds on the left of the image.
The images were taken at Runcu Stone cabin, a Bortle 4 site with an altitude of 850 m ASL. This is my first full workflow in PixInsight, assisted by
Stille.
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