Exposures: 24 10 min exposures in hydrogen alpha for a total of 4 hours
FOV = 26.6 x 31.2 arc minutes
The region surrounding the Horsehead Nebula is a stellar nursery. A complex housing forming stars, known as a stellar nursery, can contain over 100 known organic and inorganic gases as well of dust consisting of large and complex organic molecules. The darkness of the massive nebula (cataloged as Barnard 33) is not explained by this dust and gas, but by the molecular cloud complex blocking the light of stars behind it.
The Horsehead nebula is located just to the south of the star Alnitak, which is farthest east on Orion's Belt, and is part of the much larger Orion Molecular Cloud Complex.
1,500 ly distant
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