Horsehead Nebula with IC 434 - wonderfuluniverse.de

Horsehead Nebula with IC 434 from my own observatory and remote

The Horsehead Nebula, also known as Barnard 33, is one of the most iconic dark nebulae in the night sky. Silhouetted against the glowing red backdrop of the emission nebula IC 434, it lies in the rich and star-filled constellation Orion, near the bright star Alnitak, the easternmost star in Orion’s Belt. The Horsehead’s distinctive shape, resembling a small horse rearing its head, is sculpted by dense clouds of interstellar dust that block the hydrogen emission light behind it.

In 2023, I obtained a high-quality data set from Telescope Live, one of my favorite remote observatory networks, which operates telescopes in Chile, Australia, and Spain. The excellent southern sky conditions provided beautifully detailed data, revealing the intricate textures of the dark nebula and the delicate red glow of the surrounding emission region.

Interestingly, this wasn’t my first encounter with the Horsehead. Back in 2017, I had photographed the Horsehead and Flame Nebulae from my own backyard obseratory.

For the Telescope Live data, calibration, registration, and final image processing were all performed with PixInsight, allowing the subtle details of the dust structures and the interplay between dark and light to emerge clearly.

The result was as follows:

Horsehead Nebula with IC 434, (Telescope Live, Chile), 2023

The images were taken with the following equipment (Telescope Live CHI-1 CMOS):

Date: 2023
Location: El Sauce Observatory, Chile
Telescope: Planwave CDK24
Focal length [mm]: 3962
Focal ratio: 6.5
Mount: Mathis MI-1000/1250
Camera: QHY 600M Pro
Filter: Hα:[OIII]:[SII]
Exposure time [min]: 310:290:305
Resolution: 0.39″/px (2×2 binning)

The calibration and registration of my own data was done with DeepSkyStacker and the final processing was done with PixInsight. The result was as follows: