APOD: 2000 December 29 - The Dark Horsehead Nebula (original) (raw)

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos!Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2000 December 29

Explanation: While drifting through the cosmos this magnificent interstellar dust cloud, sculpted by stellar winds and radiation, has chanced to assume a recognizable shape. Fittingly namedThe Horsehead Nebulait is embedded in the immense complex ofstar forming gas and dustsurrounding theOrion Nebula some 1,500 light-years distant. The dark nebula is cataloged as Barnard 33 and is visible only because its obscuring dust is silhouetted against the bright emission nebulaewhich lie behind it. In fact, the prominenthorse head portion of the nebula is really just part of a larger cloud of dust which can be seen extending off the bottom of the picture. A potentially rewarding but difficult object to view with a small instrument,this gorgeous color imageis a composite of exposures made with a digital camera and astronomicalBVR filtersusing a 1-meter diameter telescope.