I swapped my telescope AG Optical’s 10″ IDK (a type of reflector), which had 75 times magnification capability, with Stellarvue SV130, which is a refractor with 28 times magnification for my camera QSI 683wsg.

With the lower magnification, we get a wider view and therefore, I am able to get the Horsehead Nebula as well as Flame Nebula in the same field of view.

The Horsehead Nebula, the crowning glory of all nebulae, is actually a dark nebula i.e. a column of heavier gases (i.e. Oxygen, Nitrogen etc) silhoutted against a wall of ionized Hydrogen (the pink wall). On the left is a bright star called Alnitak, which is the left-most star of the belt of the Orion Constellation and can be seen from most light-polluted skies without any optics (and that’s why it is rather bulgy in this image). Right below Alnitak is the Flame Nebula (better visualized, if you turn the image 90 degrees clockwise). It is also lot of Hydrogen gas mixed with some other gases. The pink wall behind Horsehead is about 25 light years wide. Horsehead itself about 2 ly wide. These objects are about 1500 lys away. The wall behind horsehead is ignited by the star on the top of the image, and the Flame Nebula is ignited by Alnitak.

I took this image over 14 hours (39 images of 10 minutes each in Hydrogen Alpha and 31 images of 5 minutes each for RGB color).