Two young boys, one a pessimist and one an optimist, were each given a shovel and locked in a room that was filled with a heaping pile of horse manure. After an hour or so, the door was opened.

Inside, the first kid was sitting in the corner with a scowl. He screamed, “This is terrible! Let me out of here!”

The second boy was shoveling away through the pile of manure. When asked what he was doing, he exclaimed, “There’s gotta be a pony in there somewhere!”

This was shot in LRGB only. No Ha. It has taken me five years to get to the point where I felt I could do this iconic target justice. Fifty hours under a very dark sky certainly helps. I think it’s my best attempt at it since I started doing this in 2019.

The Horsehead region in Orion, roughly 1,400 light years away, is a wonderland of shape, color, and scientific discovery. Intruding on the party is the very bright (+0.6 to +1.7 magnitude) star Alnitak—the leftmost star in Orion’s Belt.

This field contains much more than just the Horsehead Nebula. The most recognizable object other than the Horsehead is the Flame Nebula (NGC 2024). In addition to those two things, there are four catalogued reflection nebulas as well. While you can zoom into the image above and get a very close look at each one, I’ve cropped them out here for reference:

Clockwise from L: NGC 2024 (Flame), vdB 50, vdB 51, vdB 57 (IC 435), and vdB 52 (NGC 2023).