The Horsehead & Flame Nebulae

Description

The Horsehead and Flame nebulae lie in the constellation of Orion (The Hunter) and is one of my all time favourite.  The beautiful combination of bright multi coloured stars and the beautiful Nebulae such as The Orion Nebula (Messier 42), The Running Man nebula, Barnards Loop and as you can see the The Horsehead & Flame nebulae.  The Horsehead Nebula lies 2400 light years from Earth and is made up of massive clouds of dust and gas.  This is a stellar nursery, where stars are born.  To put the size in context, the Horsehead you can see is 4 light years high and 3 across.  Light travels at 286,000 miles a second and our whole solar system would fir in the nose of the horses head.  Pretty mind blowing

This was taken using an apo refractor scope (William Optics Zenithstar 81) and its a combined exposure time of around 3.5 hours using tracked single exposures of 5 minutes, stacked with calibration frames and stretched to bring out the beauty of this stunning pair of nebulae