Melotte 15 The Heart of the Heart
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 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, 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. (Wikipedia.org)
Technical Information
This image was taken with a William Optics Zenithstar 81 APO Doublet Refractor on an iOptron CEM25P mount. This telescope is a very compact unit and has optical elements made of FPL53 glass and is actually considerably sharper than some of my larger telescopes. The main imaging camera, attached to the prime focus of the telescope was a ZWO ASI294MC Pro cooled camera which was cooled to -5C. Exposures were 30 at 180 seconds each, and the gain was set to 120. Auto guiding was done using a William Optics 50mm guide scope with a 200mm FL. Attached to the guide scope was a ZWO ASI290MC camera which was connected to PHD2 autoguiding software. Capturing was done with Astrophotography Tool (APT) software and post processed with Pixinsight software with finishing touches put in using Adobe Photoshop Creative Cloud. Polar Alignment for the evening was done using SharpCap software.
Melotte 15 The Heart of the Heart
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 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, 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. (Wikipedia.org)
Technical Information
This image was taken with a William Optics Zenithstar 81 APO Doublet Refractor on an iOptron CEM25P mount. This telescope is a very compact unit and has optical elements made of FPL53 glass and is actually considerably sharper than some of my larger telescopes. The main imaging camera, attached to the prime focus of the telescope was a ZWO ASI294MC Pro cooled camera which was cooled to -5C. Exposures were 30 at 180 seconds each, and the gain was set to 120. Auto guiding was done using a William Optics 50mm guide scope with a 200mm FL. Attached to the guide scope was a ZWO ASI290MC camera which was connected to PHD2 autoguiding software. Capturing was done with Astrophotography Tool (APT) software and post processed with Pixinsight software with finishing touches put in using Adobe Photoshop Creative Cloud. Polar Alignment for the evening was done using SharpCap software.