[Matthieu (Matt)]

I had a great time last night with the Horsehead Nebula.

As I was panning through Orion without filter in my bortle 3 or 4 skies around midnight, I noticed that the Flame Nebula was visible with direct vision in my 16”. I took that as a sign to try for IC 434 and the Horsehead.

I screwed on my new to me H-Beta filter and lo and behold could immediately see the gaseous cloud. I now understand why others have referred to it as a dagger.

Spending a bit more time with averted vision, a black notch perpendicular to the dagger and going about half through became very apparent. I took note of closest stars and validated in Interstellarum at the scope and Stellarium once I got back inside.

I had some focusing issues with 1.25” eyepieces so only used my 30mm for 60x and 12.5mm for 144x). 144x was too dim with a 2.8 exit pupil so I mostly observed at 60x for 6.7 exit pupil. Next time I’ll try my 40mm for a supersized exit pupil as suggested by Jon Isaacs on CN and will try my 25, 18 and 15 just in case.

This literally made my night as I hadn’t seen it before.