My first photograph of the iconic Horsehead Nebula, an extraordinary sight that never gets old. Probably this is the nebula that most resembles its name, with the dark horsehead cloud clearly silhouetted against a beautiful scarlet curtain of ionized hydrogen alpha. The bright star directly overhead is Sigma Orionis, which I believe supplies the ionizing radiation for the dramatic background lighting.
You can find the Horsehead in the same part of the sky as the Orion nebula which I photographed earlier in the year. It’s relative close to us, at just fifteen hundred light years, and thus quite amenable to being photographed. Requiring minimal processing, it looks like a work of art right out of the gate.
