What an interesting afternoon this image created. I was outside last night snapping a series of images of IC434, The Horse Head Nebula. As I was reviewing the sequence, I noticed a pair of objects moving in tandem across the field of view. What in the world could this be?

I sent the image to a few people to see what ideas they might have. A meteor? Nope, too fast. A satellite? Nope, too fast. A plane? Nope too fast. Even the International Space Station crosses the entire sky horizon to horizon in about 6 minutes. My unidentified flying objects took 6 minutes to span the 1° field of view of my image. I sent the image to Dr. Tony Philips at Spaceweather.com for analysis. I could see it now. I’d have a street named after me in Roswell, NM. Perhaps Asteroid Anthony 2007? Fame, fortune??? Well, not exactly.

Dr. Tony explained to me that this was quite likely a geosynchronous satellite.

Dear Anthony,

You may have photographed a geosynchronous satellite. They move about 1.5 degrees in a 6 minute period. (15 degrees per hour.) Take a look at the Nov. 25, 2006, edition of spaceweather for a similar apparition in the Orion Nebula:

http://spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=25&month=11&year=2006

Regards, Tony

My UFO had quickly become an IFO (Identified Flying Object) Oh, well… better luck next time

That said, the accompanying image did capture its intended target, IC434 aka The Horsehead Nebula. The image was processed with the UFO turned IFO in mind. So, I’ve not really highlighted it. I’ll work on reprocessing the images (25 of them) a bit later. The emphasis then will most certainly be on revealing as much detail as possible in the Horse Head. This has always been one of my absolute favorite objects. The very fact that I’ve been able to capture it here speaks to the progress I’ve made astro-photography-wise. I’m betting that this is going to be a sweet astrophoto.

Astro Photo Details:

* Designation: IC434 - Barnard 33 - The Horse Head Nebula
* Type: Nebula
* Constellation: Orion
* Magnitude: 10 * Size: 65′

Astro Photo Processing Details

* 6 x 60s exposures at ISO400
* Stacked using RegiStax 4
* Neat Image
* GIMP Levels

Astronomy Equipment

* Astro Physics Starfire 160mm Refractor
* Canon Digital Rebel XTi

1. Andrew, December 5, 2007:

   Great job capturing this elusive neb!.I have tried many times to get a obvious image detail of the horse but,without much luck.Sad part is,is that I have a street light and trees in that direction so my observing/imaging window is quite narrow.As for the IFO’s,it was a short lived thrill to be sure.I had a similar experience about a month ago.I was imaging Comet 17P/Holmes with a time sequence of almost a hour and noticed 2 objects flying almost side by side (well not exactly side by side) drifting in front of the comet.I sent the 4 images to my brother to look at.I would have stacked the images together but,for some reason I couldn’t?.Anyway,he looked at the images and told me they were stars.Although he is extremely smart and has a good eye for detail,I am not convinced that they were stars since no other star in the images seemed to move.I would have loved to know they were asteroids as well.I was excited for about 2 days and when I was told the bad news,it was like getting hit in the gut. Oh well…….it would have been fun to be recognized for the discovery even if they were discovered and cataloged by someone else.
   Could you send some of your clear skies to NH as we have had clouds and snow for the past 3 weeks?.
   May I borrow your image of the Horse to edit?.I won’t post it or claim it is mine,I just want to see if I can squeeze more detail out of it?!.
   Regards,
   Andrew
   Oh and with your permission,I would like to add your site to my blogroll!.

2. anthony, December 5, 2007:

   Hey Andrew

   Thanks! Sure… see what you can pull out of the posted image. As I processed it (looking to pull out the IFO, I found that the nebula faded). I’m expecting that I will be able to post a nice image of the horse head in the next day or so. I have about 25 images to go thru. This will likely pair down to around 20 images that get stacked (after throwing out poor images). I’ll stack these and then process in GIMP. These will likely show the horse quite nicely.
   Thanks for the blog roll addition, too!!

   Anthony