IC 1805 - The Heart Nebula The Heart Nebula is one of the most beautiful deep space objects in the northern hemisphere and resides in the Perseus arm of the Milky Way. It consists of dust and ionised gases including hydrogen, oxygen and sulphur which provide it's rich colours. Like many deep space objects the Heart is huge, around 100 light years across. If you could look up and see it in the night sky it would cover an area large enough to contain twenty-five full moons, even though it is 7500 lights years from earth. Melotte 15, the feature in the centre of the Heart, contains a small star cluster which includes several stars that are 50 times larger than our sun. Size: 100 Light Years Distance from Earth: 7,500 Light Years
2021-01-25 Scope : CFF 135/926 Mount : EQ6R-Pro (DFO StellarDrive) Camera : QHY600 Lite Filters : Chroma • Ha : 47 x 600s • OIII : 15 x 600s Total Integration : 10.3 hours Looking back I am not sure how many of the subs I actually used for this image, the number of Ha and OIII subs are significantly different so I may have dropped some Ha.
2021-01-25 Scope : CFF 135/926 Mount : EQ6R-Pro (DFO StellarDrive) Camera : QHY600 Lite Filters : Chroma • Ha : 30 x 600s • OIII : 14 x 600s • SII : 12 x 600s Total Integration : 9.3 hours The stars have been removed from this image to allow the gas and dust clouds to be observed in detail.
2020-12-20 Scope : CFF 135/926 (Riccardi ==> 692mm) Mount : EQ6R-Pro (DFO StellarDrive) Camera : QHY600 Lite Filters : Chroma • Ha : 10 x 240s • OIII : 6 x 240s Total Integration : 1 hours
2019-09-23 Scope : SW Esprit 80/400 Mount : HEQ5 (DFO StellarDrive) Camera : SX814 Filters : Baader • Ha : 20 x 1200s • OIII : 10 x 1200s • SII : 9 x 1200s Total Integration : 13 hours
2017-12-08 Scope : SW Esprit 80/400 Mount : HEQ5 (DFO StellarDrive) Camera : SX814 Filters : Baader • Ha : 23 x 600s • OIII : 11 x 600s Total Integration : 5.6 hours
2016-11-12 Scope : SW Esprit 80/400 Mount : HEQ5 Camera : Nikon D750 (Unmodified) Filters : None - One Shot Colour • 12 x 600s Total Integration : 2 hours One of my first images, taken with a standard DSLR, only 2 hours integration and processed very quickly in Star Tools. This remains one of my favourite images, the colours are amazing and the star field is just crazy. I love this image.