Fittingly named the Horsehead Nebula, it is around 1,500 light-years away, embedded in the vast Orion cloud complex and is sculpted by stellar winds and radiation. About 5 light-years "tall," the dark interstellar cloud, is cataloged as Barnard 33, is a star forming region. It is visible only because its dust is silhouetted against the glowing red emission nebula IC 434. To the lower left of the image there is a contrasting blue reflection nebula NGC 2023, surrounding a hot, young star. The featured gorgeous color image combines both narrowband and broadband images recorded using several different telescopes.
Image Credit: Mark Hanson & Martin Pugh, SSRO, PROMPT, CTIO, NSF