IC434 - The Horsehead Nebula
Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2009

Overall & Deep Sky Winner

     


About this image.

E. Pickering detected IC 434 photographically in 1889, the Horsehead can be detected on a photo made on January 25, 1900 by Isaac Roberts (Roberts 1902). E.E. Barnard recognized the object in the 1910s.

The first published description of the Horsehead Nebula was given in Barnard (1913), and it was first cataloged by Barnard (1919).

The remarkable Horsehead is a dark globule of dust and non-luminous gas, obscuring the light coming from behind, especially the moderately bright nebula IC 434. It is the most remarkable feature of an interesting region of diffuse nebulae, which belongs to a huge cloud of gas and dust situated 1,600 light years away in the direction of constellation Orion. The bright reflection nebula in the lower left is NGC 2023.

(Text taken from www.seds.org)
 

Equipment

Telescope:                 12.5" Ritchey Chretien by RC Optical Systems
Mount:                      Paramount ME by Software Bisque
Instrument:               STL11000M CCD Camera by SBIG with AO-L

Exposure:                  HALRGB 5:5:3:3:3 hours.
Capture Software:       CCDSOFT V5
Processing:                Maxim DL/CCD, Photoshop CS, CCDSharp 

Home          Nebulae          Galaxies          Star Clusters          Solar System          Equipment & Observatory          Hello