The Heart Nebula (IC1805, Sh2-190) is an emission nebula located in the constellation Cassiopeia. It its about 7500 light years from earth in the Perseus Arm of our Milky Way galaxy. It has a diameter of about 165 light years.
This image shows the hear of the Heart Nebula, the central part with the Melotte 15 open star cluster. This group of young, hot, and very massive stars powers the emission of the surrounding gas. The embedded dust clouds are sculptured by radiation of these stars forming the characteristic pillar or finger-like structures.
The image is a false-color narrow-band image composed more than 22 hours of Ha, OIII and SII data. They are combined in the so-called Hubble palette color scheme with some extra color rotation and enhancement. For precessing the nebulae the stars have been removed and were only added in the end without color information.
The image below shows a zoom into the central part with the Melotte 15 cluster and the amazing, almost three-dimensional sculptures of dark and bright nebulosity.
| Telescope | CFF Triplet APO 160mm, Riccardi Reducer, f=810mm |
| Camera | ASI1600MM Pro, 8-Slot Filter Wheel with Baader Filters |
| Exposures | HOS, 90,90,90 x 300sec, ~22.5 hours total |
| Data taken | 9 – 17 October 2019 |
| Site | TURMX @ E-EyE Observatory, Extremadura |
| Processing | Robert Roth, 19 October 2019 |