The Horsehead Nebula

About this image

About this image
This color picture was made by combining several exposures taken
on the night of December 28th 1994 (UT of observation 29/12/94 around
04:00) with a 2048x2048 CCD detector at the 0.9m telescope of the
Kitt Peak National Observatory.
Observing conditions were not ideal throughout,
and so only a select few of the original observations were used.
The final tally used five
frames in the B (blue) filter for a total of 22 minutes, three frames
with the V (green) filter, 15 minutes, and two with the R (red), total
10 minutes.
Each frame was carefully cleaned, a particularly difficult task for the
blue filter due to internal reflection problems in the telescope, and
then aligned and combined by computer
to create this (approximately) true color picture.
The pixel size on the sky is 0.68 arc seconds; after combination,
the final size is 1480x1366, or about 17x15 arc minutes.
Orientation of thumbnail image: N to the left, E down.

About this object
The Horsehead Nebula, a part of the optical nebula IC434 and also known
as Barnard 33, was first recorded in 1888 on a photographic plate taken
at the Harvard College Observatory.
Its coincidental appearance as the profile of a horse's head and neck has
led to its becoming one of the most familiar astronomical objects.
It is, in fact, an extremely dense cloud projecting in front of the ionized
gas that provides the pink glow so nicely revealed in this picture.
We know this not only because the underside of the 'neck' is especially
dark, but because it actually casts a shadow on the field to its east
(below the 'muzzle').
The marked change in the density of stars visible on either side
indicates that the strip of glowing hydrogen
marks the edge of a substantial dark cloud.
As a cloud core emerging from its parental cloud, and as an active site
of low-mass star formation, the Horsehead is a simple system of
considerable use for testing models of photodissociation regions, and
revealing the intricate interrelations between gas, dust, and the light
from hot stars.
Polarization maps suggest that the entire region is illuminated by the
bright OB star Sigma Orionis, which is also responsible for exciting
the emission nebula.
(The much brighter Zeta Orionis is a foreground star, not related to the
nebulosity.)
The 'streamers' visible in the brighter region appear to be due to a
magnetic field which leaves the Horsehead cloud approximately radially,
having been entrained by outflowing matter.
Small red spots in the base of the Horsehead betray the presence of
hidden protostars, and red streaks near the yellowish nebula surrounding
V615 Orionis (bottom left) are Herbig-Haro objects, which are jets of material
ejected from protostars. The Horsehead is a fascinating, active, and
complex neighborhood.
Location: 05 38 27 -02 29 (1950.0), constellation of Orion.
Distance: about 1600 light-years.