Mike Lewis
Staff Member
So I was surprised to realize that I had not yet imaged this full nebula. I had imaged the Fish Head Nebula (included in this image, can you find it?) and also the neighboring Soul Nebula, but never this one. After working on a number of fainter targets it was very nice to go after something a bit brighter again. This is 21 hours of data, with longer subs for the Oiii and Sii channels, and then RGB stars added in. The stars are so small with this scope i am starting to think I need to ENLARGE the stars on some of these image - but I have not done that yet.
The Heart Nebula (cataloged as IC 1805 or Sharpless 2-190) is a large emission nebula located approximately 7,500 light-years away from Earth in the Perseus Arm of the Milky Way galaxy. It glows with a characteristic red and pink color (in natural light, not in color-mapped narrowband) because intense radiation and stellar winds from hot stars ionize the surrounding hydrogen. At the center of the nebula lies a young open star cluster called Melotte 15, which contains massive stars up to 50 times the mass of our Sun. The energetic radiation from these central stars carves out pillars of dust and gas where new generations of stars are actively being born.
Equipment:
Poseidon-M Camera @ -5C and
Gain:125 Offset:25
Astro-Physics Mach2 Mount
Williams Optics Cat 91, 448mm @ f/4.9
Antlia Pro Filters (3nm narrowband / RGB)
Guidestar 61 Guide scope with ASI290MM
Software:
Pixinsight Commercial Version 1.9
Lightroom CC
Photoshop CC
N.I.N.A. Control Software
BlurXTerminator (Russell Croman)
StarXTerminator (Russell Croman)
NoiseXTerminator (Russell Croman)
Astro-Physics APCC and APPM
Light Frames:
Gain 125 / Offset 25
Hα: 29 x 600 secs (4 hrs 50 mins)
Oiii: 29 x 900 secs (7 hrs 15 mins)
Sii:: 28 x 900 secs (7 hrs)
Red: 20 x 120 secs (40 mins)
Green: 18 x 120 secs (36 mins)
Blue: 20 x 120 secs (40 mins)
21 hrs 1 min total
Comments and critiques most welcome.
ML
The Heart Nebula (cataloged as IC 1805 or Sharpless 2-190) is a large emission nebula located approximately 7,500 light-years away from Earth in the Perseus Arm of the Milky Way galaxy. It glows with a characteristic red and pink color (in natural light, not in color-mapped narrowband) because intense radiation and stellar winds from hot stars ionize the surrounding hydrogen. At the center of the nebula lies a young open star cluster called Melotte 15, which contains massive stars up to 50 times the mass of our Sun. The energetic radiation from these central stars carves out pillars of dust and gas where new generations of stars are actively being born.
Equipment:
Poseidon-M Camera @ -5C and
Gain:125 Offset:25
Astro-Physics Mach2 Mount
Williams Optics Cat 91, 448mm @ f/4.9
Antlia Pro Filters (3nm narrowband / RGB)
Guidestar 61 Guide scope with ASI290MM
Software:
Pixinsight Commercial Version 1.9
Lightroom CC
Photoshop CC
N.I.N.A. Control Software
BlurXTerminator (Russell Croman)
StarXTerminator (Russell Croman)
NoiseXTerminator (Russell Croman)
Astro-Physics APCC and APPM
Light Frames:
Gain 125 / Offset 25
Hα: 29 x 600 secs (4 hrs 50 mins)
Oiii: 29 x 900 secs (7 hrs 15 mins)
Sii:: 28 x 900 secs (7 hrs)
Red: 20 x 120 secs (40 mins)
Green: 18 x 120 secs (36 mins)
Blue: 20 x 120 secs (40 mins)
21 hrs 1 min total
Comments and critiques most welcome.
ML
