Horsehead and Flame Nebulas

The Horsehead and Flame Nebulas in the constellation Orion. The Horsehead Nebula is just what it sounds and looks like--it is a dark cloud of gas silhouetted by the red cloud of gas near the center of the image, and looks like a horse's head. The Flame Nebula appears as the orange region on the left in this image, another emission nebula set aglow by the light from the star Alnitak, the left-most star in Orion's belt. This nebula also displays dark lanes of gas. The star Alnitak displays large diffraction spikes in this image, caused by the camera lens's aperture blades