Quote:
Originally Posted by Sconesbie
As I mentioned below that the nebula I saw looked like a seahorse, could this be the Horsehead Nebula? I have never seen this before and certainly looked different to M42 as I've seen in the past. It was very bright and had three stars in a line going down the body of it with four other stars forming a small square in the "head" region of it.
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The Horsehead is a dark nebula, basically an area of dust and gas superimposed over a glowing nebula. It is very faint, at a dark site it may be possible with a 10" ( I think that is your scope size? that is why it is a good idea to specify when doing a report what scope you used) but anyway, very bright is definitely not a description of the horsehead, and it is a fair way away from M42.
What you saw was M42/43. The square of stars you describe is the "Trapezium" which are the brightest stars in the cluster of new stars that are causing M42 to glow. M43 is the small comma shaped lying just to north of the bulk of M42.
Cheers
Malcolm