William Anthony Photography

One of the most well known astronomical objects is the Horsehead Nebula (Barnard 33) located 1500 light years away in the constellation Orion. The Horsehead itself is a dark nebula made visible by the glowing red of emission nebula IC 434. Astronomer E.E. Barnard compiled a catalogue of most of the known dark nebula at the time, hence the B33 designation. The Horsehead was discovered photographically in 1888 by Williamina Flemming. The reddish nebula behind the Horsehead is glowing hydrogen ionized by Sigma Orionis. The shadow of the Horsehead can be seen on the nebula behind it. The Flame nebula can be seen to the right of the Horsehead. There is also a sprinkling of blue reflection nebula visible to the left and below the Horsehead. This image was produced by shooting 17 hours worth of exposure over 6 nights in January and February. A CLS light pollution filter was used to obtain 8 hours of general RGB color data. A 12mm Ha filter was used to obtain 9 hours of hydrogen alpha data. The RGB data helped to display the traces of glowing blue nebula in the image, along with detail in the Flame Nebula. The hydrogen alpha data helped to bring out the faint glowing red background nebula.