Below: A closer look at some interesting structures:
Below: A little extra work on a cropped section showing The Fishhead Nebula:
Another crop area below: (The beauty of having a large chip image at good resolution )
Another rendition - Oct. 2022
The Heart Nebula, IC 1805, Sharpless 2-190, 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, because it was the first part of the nebula to be discovered. The nebula's intense 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, known as Collinder 26 or 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.
I decided to do this again this year - it has a wider field of view than last year's because of using the reducer in the image train. The image scale is also different obviously but to make it even more different - I have satuarated the colours more than I normally do.
Imaging telescopes or lenses: Takahashi FSQ130ED
Imaging cameras: FLI ML16200
Mounts: Takahashi EM 400 Temma 2M
Guiding telescopes or lenses: Takahashi FS60CB
Guiding cameras: QHY CCD QHY 5 II
Focal Extender / Reducer: Tak QE 0.73x
Software: PHD 2, Pleiades Astrophoto PixInsight , Astro Pixel Processor (for stacking), Sequence Generator Pro SGP (for capture)
Filters: Astrodon Ha, SII, OIII,
Accessories: Robofocus Focuser, ATIK EFW3
Original Resolution: 4200x 3500
Dates: 12th Oct - 15th Oct '21
Frames:
Astrodon Ha 39 x 10'
Astrodon SII 39 x 10'
Astrodon OIII 32 x 10'
Total Time: 18 Hours
Center (RA, Dec): (38.330, 61.459)
Center (RA, hms): 02h 33m 19.239s
Center (Dec, dms): +61° 27' 33.108"
Size: 3.03 x 2.53 deg
Radius: 1.972 deg
Pixel scale: 2.6 arcsec/pixel
Orientation: Up is 359 degrees E of N
The brightest part of the nebula (a knot at its western edge) is separately classified as NGC 896, because it was the first part of the nebula to be discovered. The nebula's intense 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, known as Collinder 26 or 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.
I decided to do this again this year - it has a wider field of view than last year's because of using the reducer in the image train. The image scale is also different obviously but to make it even more different - I have satuarated the colours more than I normally do.
Imaging telescopes or lenses: Takahashi FSQ130ED
Imaging cameras: FLI ML16200
Mounts: Takahashi EM 400 Temma 2M
Guiding telescopes or lenses: Takahashi FS60CB
Guiding cameras: QHY CCD QHY 5 II
Focal Extender / Reducer: Tak QE 0.73x
Software: PHD 2, Pleiades Astrophoto PixInsight , Astro Pixel Processor (for stacking), Sequence Generator Pro SGP (for capture)
Filters: Astrodon Ha, SII, OIII,
Accessories: Robofocus Focuser, ATIK EFW3
Original Resolution: 4200x 3500
Dates: 12th Oct - 15th Oct '21
Frames:
Astrodon Ha 39 x 10'
Astrodon SII 39 x 10'
Astrodon OIII 32 x 10'
Total Time: 18 Hours
Center (RA, Dec): (38.330, 61.459)
Center (RA, hms): 02h 33m 19.239s
Center (Dec, dms): +61° 27' 33.108"
Size: 3.03 x 2.53 deg
Radius: 1.972 deg
Pixel scale: 2.6 arcsec/pixel
Orientation: Up is 359 degrees E of N
Sky Map
Annotated Image - click on image for a closer look.
