The "Horse Head Nebula" in Orion

A CCD taken with an STL-1301E camera thru Kopernik's 20-inch F/8.1 telescope. North is at the top and the field of view is about 12x15 arc minutes.



The color image was taken with an ST-9E camera; the field of view is about 9x9 arc minutes.

The "Horse Head Nebula", Barnard 33, in Orion:

This CCD image shows only a small part of a vast complex of gas, dust, and newly forming stars. The bright background is a part of bright nebula IC 434 and is both emission (mostly glowing hydrogen and oxygen) and reflection nebula. The "Horse Head" is a cloud of dark dust that is blocking light from the gas and stars behind it. There are new stars forming in this nebula. The Horse Head is in the constellation of Orion near the eastern belt star. The Horse Head was discovered on photographs in the late 19th century. While E. Barnard did not discover this object, he was the first to recognize that it was a vast dark cloud blocking the light coming from behind it. He included it in his catalog of dark nebulae as B-33.

• B 33 (part of IC 434)
• Constellation: Orion
• RA: 05h 41m 00.0s
• Dec: -02° 24' 00" Epoch 2000
• Size (mins): 60.0'
• Classification: IC 434 is an emission and reflection nebula; B-33, the Horse Head, is a dark nebula.
  

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George Normandin, KAS

January 1st, 2005