Flame Nebula and Horse Head

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Photo 25 x 2 minutes - night between 13-01-2005 and 14-01-2005.

Photographers on that cold and moonless night : Tom, Simon, Thomas, Kasper, Maria, Rikke, Bjarke and Steffen

At the lower left belt star of Orion, you find these famous nebulas - at the lower part of the image is the Horsehead Nebula B-33, a dust cloud that by random outlines the shape of a horse head.

The bright nebula to the right is called the Flame nebula; NGC 2024.

The proper chemical structure of these dark interstellar dust particles is not yet known - but contains probably a lot of carbon as well as complicated organic molecules.

The astronomers Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe have studied the infrared spectra of these dark interstellar grains, and even concluded that they were dried, frozen bacteria.

Distances of both nebulas - probably 1600 lightyears.