Dark nebula
Horsehead Nebula (IC434)
In Orion (Ori) • Magnitude 13.0 • 1.0 degrees
Open the free AstroPlanner with Horsehead Nebula pre-selected, scored against your telescope, location, and the live cloud forecast.
The iconic dark horsehead silhouette in Orion against the Ha emission of IC 434.
Horsehead Nebula at a glance
| Catalog IDs | I 434 |
| Type | Dark nebula |
| Constellation | Orion (Ori) |
| Right ascension | 05h 40m 55s |
| Declination | -02° 28' 12" |
| Apparent magnitude | 13.00 |
| Surface brightness | 15.0 mag/arcsec² |
| Angular size | 60.0 × 10.0 arcmin |
| Max altitude at 45°N | 43° |
| Best imaging months | Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb |
How to image Horsehead Nebula
Horsehead Nebula sits in the constellation Orion at right ascension 05h 40m 55s and declination -02° 28' 12". To frame and integrate it well, AstroPlanner will compute the optimal moonless window for tonight from your location, the field-of-view fit against your sensor and focal length, the suggested total integration time given your aperture and sky Bortle class, and a cloud-aware schedule that drops it from the plan if your nearest cloud forecast spike overlaps the best altitude window.