Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Cassiopeia (Cas)  ·  Contains:  HD14510  ·  HD14552  ·  HD14558  ·  HD14695  ·  HD14794  ·  HD14817  ·  HD15069  ·  HD15238  ·  HD15239  ·  HD15250  ·  HD15382  ·  HD15522  ·  HD15557  ·  HD15558  ·  HD15570  ·  HD15629  ·  HD15665  ·  HD15785  ·  HD15851  ·  HD16183  ·  HD16218  ·  HD16349  ·  HD16410  ·  HD16429  ·  HD16506  ·  HD16626  ·  HD236966  ·  IC 1795  ·  IC 1805  ·  IC 1824  ·  And 29 more.
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The Heart Nebula (IC 1805), Ani Shastry
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The Heart Nebula (IC 1805)

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The Heart Nebula (IC 1805), Ani Shastry
Powered byPixInsight

The Heart Nebula (IC 1805)

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Description

A glowing celestial cloud predominantly composed of ionized hydrogen gas, with its heart-like shape being driven by stellar winds from the super hot stars in its core, the Heart Nebula (IC 1805) is an emission nebula 7,500 light years away from Earth in the Perseus Arm of our galaxy, in the constellation of Cassiopeia. The nebula covers an area almost 4 times the size of the full moon in the sky!

At the center of the nebula is an open star cluster called Melotte 15, which contains a few bright stars that are nearly 50 times as massive as our Sun. The nebula also has ionized oxygen and sulfur gasses that contribute to the bluish and orangish tones. And at the bottom of the heart lies the Fishhead Nebula (IC 1795).

Captured here using a Celestron EdgeHD 11”, a Starizona Hyperstar v4, and a QHY600M camera with a 12.5 hour integration spread over two nights at the super-fast focal ratio of f/1.9, which is equivalent to a massive ~169 hours of data at the typical f/7 focal ratio of many of my other images!

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The Heart Nebula (IC 1805), Ani Shastry