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The Horsehead is a dark nebula officially known as Bernard 33 (B33). It is a cloud of dust backlit by the red emission nebula IC 434. The nearby illuminator of IC 434 is Alnitak (the eastern star of Orion's belt). Alnitak is very bright and makes imaging in this area quite difficult. The Horsehead is 1500 ly distant, and 1 ly across.
For a zoomed out view of the area, click here.
This RGB data was taken remotely from Dark Sky New Mexico with a 106mm f/5 Takahashi refractor and an ASI2600 camera. Two nights were used to collect more than 4 hours of exposure. 10/18/2022 and 10/25/2022.
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Total exposure time: 4 hrs, 15 min |
All processing was in Pixinsight.
Previous attempt.
The image above was taken with the 12" LX200, AO7, and ST-8E camera at f/6.3 on Jan 6, 2003 from my home dome in Monmouth Oregon. It is an RRGB image (as detailed below) since the reflection nebula is very red, and Alnitak is very blue. Calibration and alignment were done in MaxIm DL. RRGB layering was done with Photoshop. With an average altitude of 41 degrees, I balanced this to an RGB ratio of 1.10 : 1.00 : 2.12.
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Filter |
Exposure | Count | Binning |
| Luminance | reuse red | ||
| Red | 55 min | 11 x 5 min | 2x2 |
| Green | 15 min | 3 x 5 min | 2x2 |
| Blue | 30 min | 6 x 5 min | 2x2 |
Previous image taken Feb 19, 1999.
A composite of four one minute exposures taken
with the 12" LX200 and 416XT CCD at f3.3 in Monmouth, OR.