You’ve seen this before, right? … The iconic Horsehead nebula? I pondered this tonight as I write this post. I wonder if it’s so iconic to me as consequence of growing up in the latter stages of the space age. When Hubble Space Telescope and the like came online and fed our curiosity. I can’t think back to a recent time when I’ve seen this in the myriad media we consume. And so I now present to you, my renditions of the Horsehead nebula. What you see above is the black-and-white image captured with high contrast by using a Hydrogen-Alpha (Ha) filter. The Ha filter to strips away all light except deep red.
Here’s the same image but false-colored like a half decent early 20th century movie:
