Horsehead Nebula (David Schlaudt)

Celestial hemisphere: Southern · Constellation: Orion (Ori) · Contains: Flame Nebula · IC 434 · NGC 2023 · Orion B

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Horsehead Nebula

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Horsehead Nebula

The Horsehead Nebula is a nebula of gas and dust 1,600 light years from Earth. The dark cloud of the Horsehead stands out because it is silhouetted against the bright emission nebula IC 434 which is being ionized by the nearby bright star Sigma Orionis located above the nebula out of frame in my image. One very interesting thing of note about IC 434 is the distinct lines seen in the ionized nebula behind the Horsehead which have always reminded me of brush strokes in a painting. These lines are most likely caused by magnetic field lines in the nebula itself, a feature I’ve not seen in other nebulas. This image was taken in narrowband with 3nm Ha and 7nm OIII filters and processed mapping Ha to red and OIII to blue and then synthesizing green using PS Astronomy tools plug-ins. I find myself favoring this approach to processing narrowband images because the resulting image more closely resembles what the object looks like in full color but with the added resolution narrowband imaging provides. Also seen in the image is the reflection nebula NGC 2023 at the bottom of the image. Being a reflection nebula this object doesn’t radiate light in the way emission nebulae do but rather reflects light from nearby stars.

I took a very similar image of this object with my Celestron 6se 3 years ago and of my earlier images it was the one most people commented on. I thought I’d try this one again with the 9.25 Edge HD and a new 3nm narrowband Ha filter.

Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope (SCT) Imagers
ZWO ASI1600MM/QHY163M

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Status	Basic success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	5460058
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
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