Horse Head and Flame Nebulae

About This Photograph

A collection of wonders pose here for a celestial portrait. On the lower left is the Flame Nebula, a cloud of gas illuminated by a source seemingly hidden by the dark, forked tongue of dust bisecting the nebula. Off to the right is the famous Horse Head Nebula, the most well-known of cosmic silhouettes, with its vast curtain of hydrogen gas as its back-drop. Two other luminous shrouds for newborn stars also adorn the view: IC432 on the left, and the bluish NGC 2023 below center. And topping off the scene is the brilliant star, Alnitak, a blue supergiant some 11,000 times more luminous than the sun.