The Heart Nebula lies some 7500 light years away from Earth and is located in the Perseus Arm of the Galaxy in the constellation Cassiopeia. It was discovered by William Herschel on 3 November 1787. It is an emission nebula showing glowing ionized hydrogen gas and darker dust lanes.
The brightest part of the nebula (a knot at its western edge) is separately classified as NGC 896 and known as the Fish Head Nebula, because it was the first part of the nebula to be discovered.
The nebula’s intense red output and its morphology are driven by the radiation emanating from a small group of stars near the nebula’s center. This open cluster of stars at the Heart’s heart, known as Melotte 15, contains a few bright stars nearly 50 times the mass of our Sun, and many more dim stars that are only a fraction of our Sun’s mass.
This image is comprised of 40 images of 4 min exposures each for a total integration of 2hrs 40mins. Each image was shot at 100 gain & 20 offset in a ZWO ASI071MC Pro camera cooled to 20f. 20 darks, 20 flats, 20 bias frames as calibration frames.
This nebula is in a late rising constellation in our summer months. I was able to begin imaging at 2AM and photographed continuously until a few minutes past 5AM. Do you see the heart? How about the fishhead? There’s also a soul nebula located just outside of this images frame. I’ll image that in the future. The FOV of my Z73 is just a touch to narrow to get them both in the same shot.
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Cheers!
