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This is a colourful image of Alnitak area, in the Orion's Belt. Alnitak, also known as Zeta Orionis (Zeta Ori) is a supergiant star with a brightness 35,000 times greater than the Sun. Its mass is 20 times the solar mass.
Alnitak excites and heats up the gases in the Flame Nebula (NGC 2024) causing it to glow showing unique and beautiful colours. The dark central area in the Flame Nebula is caused by a lane of dust in the foreground. The Flame Nebula was discovered by Wilhelm Herschel in 1786.
Also visible at top right IC 432 and IC 431, two nebulas that bright reflecting Alnitak's light.

Remarkable features Click the image for a higher resolution version NGC 2024 is the Flame Nebula, an emission nebula with a diameter of about 30 arcminutes. Alnitak also known as Zeta Orionis, is a superegiant star, with a brightness 35,000 times greater than out Sun. It's visual magnitude is 2.05. IC432 is a reflection nebula with a size of 10x10 arcminutes. IC431 is a reflection nebula with a size of 8x5 arcminutes. HR1970 is a red star, with a color index of 1.47. Its visual magnitude is 6.3, so it can be barely visible to the naked eye from a very dark location.   Find Chart The position of NGC 2024 (in the red circle) in Orion constellation. Image from Cartes du Ciel.

In order to produce the color image seen here, I worked with data coming from 2 different photographic plates taken at Palomar Observatory between 1987 and 1990. The original file is 3,793 × 3,291 pixels with a resolution of about 1 arcsec per pixel. The image shows an area of sky large 1.0° × 0.8° (for comparison, the full-Moon is about 0.5° in diameter).
Copyright: Davide De Martin (http://www.skyfactory.com).

Other images of the same celestial field found online

• http://www.astrocruise.com/flame.htm by Philip Perkins;
• http://www.astro.indiana.edu/images/ngc2024.jpg by unknown;
• http://www.koyote.com/users/bobm/alnitak.htm by Bobby Middleton.

This image is a composite from black and white images taken with the Palomar Observatory's 48-inch (1.2-meter) Samuel Oschin Telescope as a part of the second National Geographic Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS II). The images were recorded on two type of glass photographic plates - one sensitive to red light and the other to blue light and later they were digitized. Credit: Caltech, Palomar Observatory, Digitized Sky Survey.