Orion ED80 Refractor Reduced 0.8
QSI 583WSG
Astrodon 5nm SII, Ha and OIII
Ha 7x15min ;OIII, SII 11x15min - All binned 1x1
Imager Temp -20C
Cropped Slightly for Framing

Link to Larger JPEG

The Heart Nebula, IC 1805, lies some 7500 light years away from Earth. It is located in the Perseus arm of the Galaxy in the constellation Cassiopeia. This is an emission nebula showing glowing gas and darker dust lanes.

The star cluster Melotte 15 is the driving force that excites and illuminates the gas and dust of the "Heart Nebula", IC 1805. This open cluster 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 small, OIII rich planetary nebula WeBo 1 (PN G135.6+01.0), can be seen as an elongated blue oval surrouding two 14 or 15 mag stars in the upper left of the image in the "V" of the heart, it's visibility greatly enhanced by the OIII data. This has been called a Barium Star surrounded by a young planetary nebula.

October 22 and 31, 2010