First clear night in months ...
It has been a long time (several months) since I was able to image. Hope you enjoy this image of the Horsehead and Flame nebulae.
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| The Horsehead (B33/IC434) and Fame Nebula (NGC 2024) captured on 2/8/2026 at our club's observatory. |
What is it? (written with AI assistance)
Horsehead Nebula — a dark dust cloud silhouetted against a glowing emission background. The feature in your image is the Horsehead Nebula, also cataloged as Barnard 33 and IC 434, a cold, dense pocket of gas and dust that blocks starlight and takes on the familiar horsehead shape. This dark nebula sits within the Orion molecular cloud complex and is a nearby site of ongoing low‑mass star formation.
Flame Nebula — a bright emission region of ionized gas. The Flame Nebula, cataloged as NGC 2024, is an H II region where energetic young stars excite hydrogen and other gases so they glow, producing the reddish emission that frames the area around Alnitak. This is an active star‑forming region with complex filaments and dust lanes that give the nebula its textured appearance.
Alnitak — the illuminating blue supergiant in the foreground. Alnitak is the easternmost star of Orion’s Belt and appears very bright in your frame; it lies in the foreground relative to the nebulae and contributes to the illumination and contrast of nearby clouds.
Reflection Nebulae and Surroundings — faint blue glows and dusty knots. Several smaller reflection nebulae such as NGC 2023 and cataloged IC objects scatter starlight and add subtle blue tones and structure across the field. Together with the Horsehead and Flame Nebulae, these objects form a compact, richly textured slice of the Orion molecular cloud complex that is a favorite target for astrophotographers.
Why it matters — this patch of Orion is a textbook example of how dust, gas, and young stars interact: dark silhouettes, glowing emission, and scattered reflection all appear in one frame, revealing different physical processes and stages of star formation.
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| An annotated version of the image. |
How big is it?
The horsehead Nebula (B33) has an apparent size of 6 x 4 arcminutes on the sky with an actual diameter of 2.8 light-years (ly). For reference, the Moon has an apparent size of 31 arcminutes.
The Flame Nebula (NGC 2024) has an apparent size of 30 x 30 arcminutes on the sky with an actual diameter of 7.1 ly.
IC 434 has an apparent size of 60 x 10 arcminutes on the sky with an actual diameter of 14.2 ly.
How far is it?
Distance estimates for The Horsehead, Flame, and IC 434 Nebulae range from 1,260 to 1,600 ly.
How to find it?
The Horsehead is "easy" to find but very difficult to actually see (visually). Think of trying to see a black smudge on a black tablecloth. Although it is difficult to visually observe, it is relatively easy to image. To visually observe the Horsehead Nebula, a 10" or larger telescope, H-beta filter, and dark skies are required.
The Horsehead is located about 1 degree south of the bright star Alnitak (the leftmost star in Orion's belt. Refer to the red rectangle in the finder chart below.
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| Finder Chart for The Horsehead and Flame Nebula. |
Imaging Notes:
Sunday February 8, 2026, was forecast to be clear, very cold, but clear. The first clear night in months. There was also this little event going called the Super Bowl. I could not stomach watching the Patriots, so I opted to brave the cold and head out to our club's observatory. I was joined by two other members.
One member ran the club's Celestron 14" Edge HD. He initially pointed the scope at Jupiter. After grabbing some data on Jupiter, he captured data on M1 (The Crab Nebula). The other member and I attempted to get the club's Tele Vue NP101is setup running. We ran into an issue focusing the telescope. The dangerously cold temperatures (well below zero Fahrenheit) made it too difficult for the electronic focuser to move the telescope's focuser. We were able to manually focus with a Bahtinov mask but lost valuable imaging time due to the issue. We need to see what we can do to mitigate this from happening in the future, a good task for a cloudy night.
The skies were really good. Guiding was fantastic and the stars held steady with an HFR of 2.7. I had to leave at 9 pm (work night) but the other members imaged for about another hour before closing up shop. I went out Sunday February 15, 2026, with another member to collect matching darks and flats so we could process the image.
Processing:
All pre and post processing was performed in PixInsight. Pre-Processing: All subs were visually inspected with Blink. All light Frames, Flats, Darks and Dark flats were loaded into WBPP and pre-processed. Linear Post Processing: Background extraction was performed with GraXpert followed by BXT (correct only). SPCC was used for Color Calibration followed by a full application of BXT. The image was made non-linear with MultiscaleAdaptiveStretch (MAS) process. The Stars were then removed using StarXT.
Non-linear Post Processing: Starless: Noise was reduced with NXT. The Image blend Script was used to sharpen the image with a High Pass Filter. DarkStructureEnhance script was used with a low setting to help make any dark structures pop a little more. A final Curves adjustment was made with CT to enhance contrast. Stars: No additional processing was performed on the stars. Final: The Stars and Starless images were combined with Pixel Math to produce the final image.
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