Horsehead Nebula

[egfearless]

I was came in from gazing at the sky..... It was the shortest i've ever spent looking cos it was cold.... But for the first time ever, i know for sure i was looking at orions nebulae..... i could clearly see a grey patch where i was ment to, amazing and then i tried to look for the horse head and flame (which i only found out tonight was in orion, but my scope is not big enough).... then i looked at saturn saw the rings....... Great

[Scott M]

The Horse Head is not in the Great Orion Nebula. (M42) The great nebula is the middle of the sword. The horse head is near the leftmost star of the belt.

The horse head is very hard to see. The smallest telescope I've seen it with is a 25". From a good dark site. I had to use a Hydrogen-beta filter to see the red nebulosity the horse head is in front of. It still took two hours to be sure I had found it the first time.

[egfearless]

Ya i know its in the left most star, i knew i was looking in the right place because that star gave off a blue light, but a 25" is the smallest you've seen it in.. that's a real bummer, i was really hoping to get a look at it, its got be my favourite from all the photographs i,ve seen of others.... Well maybe i was on a high from the good night i had with my scope, after all it has a mag of 10 and orions nebulae is about a 4 or 5, and that was hard enought for me to find.

Well maybe someday, when I win the lotto Thanks Anyway

[admin]

Well, guess I'll never see the horse head. I see the other end of the horse at work every day, though, so there's compensation in life. :P

[dantistryfiliya]

Is a mention of seeing the horsehead in a 5 inch scope in the Astronomy Magazine Special Issue covering the 2006 calendar year ...note this is rare and not easy to do... Also says to use a hydrogen beta filer.. Larger scopes tho are are certainly the choice on this one.. Chances are minimal, however, always fun to try..

[dantistryfiliya]

Its really dis heartening.... if its a 10mag nebulae, it big, and its location is easy to find. Has any one here seen it in a normal scope we can see 10 mag stars with small scopes can't we

[kevinpgrinnell]

Several things enter into seeing, example the M33 is spread out so much can challenge small scopes but easy in binoculars or even naked eye... Classic M57 ring nebula is concentrated giving nice views in the smallest instruments... Amazed at what small scopes can see under dark skys and exceptional conditions..just takes patience.... WARREN .. PS: Add when objects observed are near brighter stars, becomes a challenge as nearby star tends to block out the view... A very easy one to target is Polaris the North Star has a close near 9th magnitude companion, is very close to Polaris, looking almost in the glare, imagine if your locating a fuzzy spread out Nebula !! The companion is Blue-purple color in small scopes....

[speaker]

Yeah the Horsehead is very difficult to see in anything smaller than 8" (it's difficult enough in bigger ones) It requires a very dark sky, good transparency, and you need very good dark adaption as well as plenty of aperture and as warren says, a hydrogen beta filter is a big help.

The nebula the reaches down from Alnitak is mag 10, the Horsehead itself is a dark patch, seen against that nebula (and doesn't have it's own mag rating as such) A big problem is the glare of Alnitak interfering with the view. It is said to be best to choose a magnifictaion that will put Alnitak just out of the field of view, while keeoing the Horsehead just inside the other edge of the FOV. The only time I've ever seen it visually was using that method, through a 16" dob, at a VERY dark site, with a H-beta filter and even then, it was only JUST visible against the nebula. Needed averted vision, and still took a good while to locate.

Many experienced astronomers have never seen it visually.