IC 1805 The Heart Nebula

Location

Taken From DGRO in Edgerton Wisconsin

Telescope & Mount

TMB 130 @f6 on Paramount ME

Camera

SBIG STL-11000 with Astrodon Filters

Image Data

HA  300m - 30m subs, 1x1 at -30

O3  240m- 30m subs, 1x1 at -30

S2  240m - 30m subs, 1x1 at -30

Total of 13 hours exposure

Processing

Calibrated, aligned,stacked in Maxim along with RC Astro consol.  Color combine using Fits Liberator/Photoshop CS4 and the clipped layer mask method described by a nice video from  Ken Crawford.

About this Object

Discription from APOD

Explanation: What powers the Heart Nebula? The large emission nebula dubbed IC 1805 looks, in whole, like a human heart. The nebula glows brightly in red light emitted by its most prominent element: hydrogen. The red glow and the larger shape are all created by a small group of stars near the nebula's center. A close up in high dynamic range (HDR) spanning about 30 light years contains many of these stars is shown above. 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.

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap111025.html