Instrument

Takahashi FSQ-106ED @ f/5.0 (530 mm F.L.) Captured at 2.1 arcsec/pixel.  Shown at 2.90 and 9.28 arcsec/pixel.

Mount

Losmandy G11 with Gemini L4 v1.0

Camera

SBIG STF-8300M Self Guiding Package w/ mono ST-i, using an AstroDon 5 nm Ha filters.

Acquisition Data

9/28/2013 to 1/6/2014 Chino Valley, AZ... with CCDAutoPilot5 & CCDSoft.

Exposure

Software & Processing Notes

• CCDSoft, CCDStack, PixInsight and Photoshop CS6.

• CCDStack to calibrate, register, normalize, data reject, combine the sub exposures.

• PixInsight for the initial non-linear stretching.

• PhotoShop for final touch-up.

• Noiseware 5, a PhotoShop plug-in.

• Click here for the NarrowBand images
  Click here for the LRGB image

Comment

The nebula is shown rotated 90 degrees clockwise.

The large emission nebula, dubbed IC 1805, looks much like a human heart. The nebula glows brightly in red light emitted by its most prominent element, hydrogen. The glow and the larger shape are all created by a small group of stars near the nebula's center. A close up spanning about 30 light years contains many of these stars. This open cluster of stars contains a few bright stars nearly 50 times the mass of our Sun, many dim stars only a fraction of the mass of our Sun, and an absent microquasar that was expelled millions of years ago. The Heart Nebula is located about 7,500 light years away toward the constellation of Cassiopeia.

Source: NASA APOD