Observation by Richard Francis: The heart of the Heart

Uploaded by

Richard Francis

Observer

Richard Francis

Observed

2020 Jan 20 - 00:05

Uploaded

2024 Mar 14 - 00:09

Objects

The Heart Nebula (IC1805)

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Constellation

Cassiopeia

Field centre

RA: 02^h34^m
Dec: +61°24'
Position angle: -0°05'

Field size

1°04' × 1°04'

Equipment

FLI Kepler 4040
Officina Stellare UCRC360
Paramount MEII

Exposure

SHO ~60x 300s each

Location

La Romieu, SW France

Target name

Melotte 15

Title

The heart of the Heart

About this image

Again I had to reduce to 50% to fit in the 2Mb limit.

Here is an image of Melotte 15, the open cluster embedded in the Heart Nebula. This image is a compilation of almost 16h of data spread over about 3 weeks. It is a first, in my experience, in that no noise reduction has been necessary: there is no obvious noise in the data, and noise reduction steps only resulted in a slight loss of detail with no gain in apparent noise.This version of the image (I have tried many of them) has RGB stars, derived from a few LRGB frames, and integrated using PixInsight’s PixelMath process, passing via the L*a*b space. I had tried this unsatisfactorily a few times but finally found a PixInsight forum post by RickS (https://pixinsight.com/forum/index.php?topic=6486.0) which filled in the remaining blanks.

The field of view of my system is not sufficient to frame the whole of the Heart Nebula. My next project is another part of the nebula.

Melotte 15 is one of 245 entries in the catalogue of star clusters compiled by Philibert Jacques Melotte, a British astronomer, whose parents were Belgian. It is about 7,500 light-years away.

Files associated with this observation

Mel_15_Heart_Nebula_2Mb.jpg (1.3 MB)

Like this image

Simon Paul Davis, Ian Jarrett, Andy Wilson, NORMAN GRAY, Luigi Morrone, Manolo_Rodriguez, Martina McGovern

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