Horsehead and Flame Nebulaeseen thru a Hydrogen-alpha filter

"The well-known Horsehead Nebula (Barnard 33) is the dark globule near the center of this image. It is obscuring the modestly bright, extended nebula IC 434, which extends south of the bright star Zeta Orionis (one of Orion's belt stars). Note that the Horsehead is just an extrusion of a large dark nebula covering about the left half of this image, and thus extincting the light of most of the stars from behind.



"Below the bright star Zeta Orionis is the bright and conspicuous emission nebula NGC 2024, also known as Flame Nebula, which is also a remarkable radio source (Orion B). All these nebulae are part of the large Orion cloud which is centered at the Great Orion Nebula, M42, and extends over several hundreds of light years and is about 1,600 light years remote.

"North is left. The camera was misaligned, so some aberrations are present in the corners."

All so matter-of-factly presented by Johannes Schedler from his Panther Observatory.