The Horsehead and Flame Nebulae (IC434, B33, NGC2024) (Terry Hancock)

The Horsehead and Flame Nebulae (IC434, B33, NGC2024)

Captured from my backyard observatory in Western Michigan between the 4 winter seasons of 2011 to 2014 using QHY9 and QHY11 Mono CCD’s, 5 inch TMB 130 and TMB92 refractors, AT12RC and Takahashi E180 Telescopes. This image represents over 20 hours of exposures and over 200 individual frames.

Part of the Orion Molecular Cloud, an immense star forming region very close to earth, The Flame and Horsehead Nebulas offer a glimpse into the process from which stars and their planets are created. The colorfully lit areas are being irradiated by the young stars which have formed in the recent past and as a result, the ionized hydrogen in the clouds glows. The dark regions, on the other hand, are areas of dusty material in the interstellar medium dense enough to obscure the glow from behind. The Horsehead is such an object and from our vantage point on Earth, it bears a striking resemblance to the head of a horse.

The bright blue star just above The Flame Nebula is the easternmost star in Orion's belt, Alnitak, also known as Zeta Orionis. It is a "blue super-giant" and the brightest such star in the night sky.

Although it appears as a single object it is actually a triple-star (three stars in orbit around each other).

Zeta Orionis is responsible for the glow of the Flame Nebula; it glows so intensely in the ultra-violet range that even at a distance of a hundred light-years, the hydrogen in the cloud becomes ionized like neon in a sign. This radiation is also speeding the development of new stars as the pressure from the radiation further compresses the material. When the density of the material becomes great enough, gravity takes over and collapses the gas into a single object where temperature and pressure increase so dramatically that hydrogen atoms are fused into helium and a new star is born.

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