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Friday, April 10, 2015

My last imaging project for this Winter season, a high resolution mosaic image of the Heart Nebula


We are now out of astronomical darkness for about six months due to high latitude, 65N. As every time, it's hard to give up imaging the beauty of the deep sky.

IC 1805, the Heart Nebula is my last imaging project for this season. It's a very high resolution, six panels mosaic image. Image is shot between 20. February and 21. March, total exposure time is 49h. Original size is about 11.000 x 9000 pixels at the scale of one arcsecond/pixel.

IC 1805
Be sure to click for a high resolution photo, 2300x1900 pixels and 3MB

Natural color composition from the emission of ionized elements. This composition is very close to a visual spectrum. A higher resolution version can be seen HERE


Image in mapped colors
Click for a high resolution photo, 2300x1900 pixels and 3MB

Image is in mapped colors from an emission of  the ionized elements. Golden areas are from emission of sulfur and hydrogen, S-II and H-alpha, blueish areas are from ionized oxygen, O-III.


Closeups from the mosaic
Click for a higher resolution

IC 1795

This image was published at March 31, 2015. Blog post about it can be seen HERE


The heart of the Heart, Melotte 15
Click for a higher resolution

This part of the mosaic image was published at March 9, 2015. Blog post about it can be seen HERE


IC 1805 in light of an ionized hydrogen, H-alpha, alone.

Click for a higher resolution






INFO

This high resolution photo of the IC 1805, the Heart nebula, is a six panel mosaic. (Original size is about 11.000 x 9000 pixels at the scale of one arcsecond/pixel.) It shows many details in the IC 1805, like the Melotte 15 at the heart of the Heart Nebula. Total exposure time for this narrowband photo is 49h.

The "Heart Nebula", IC 1805 locates about 7500 light years away in constellation Cassiopeia. This is an emission nebula showing glow of ionized elements in a gas cloud and some darker dust lanes.In a very center of the nebula, lays Melotte 15, it contains few very bright stars, nearly 50 times mass of our Sun, and many dim ones. The solar wind, a radiation pressure, from massive stars makes the gas twist to a various shapes.


Orientation in a wide field photo

The Heart Nebula, IC 1805, at right. The Soul Nebula, IC 1848, can be seen at left.


The Soul Nebula, IC 1848

My previous imaging project from this area was a two frame mosaic photo of the Soul Nebula at last Autumn season, it can be seen HERE

Click for a large image



Technical details

Processing work flow

Image acquisition, MaxiDL v5.07.
Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack2.
Deconvolution with a CCDStack2 Positive Constraint, 33 iterations, added at 50% weight
Color combine in PS CS3
Levels and curves in PS CS3.

Imaging optics
Celestron Edge HD 1100 @ f7 with 0,7 focal reducer for Edge HD 1100 telescope

Mount
10-micron 1000

Cameras and filters
Imaging camera Apogee Alta U16 and Apogee seven slot filter wheel
Guider camera, Lodestar x2 and SXV-AOL

Astrodon filter, 5nm H-alpha
Astrodon filter, 3nm O-III
Astrodon filter, 3nm S-II

Exposure times
H-alpha, 72 x 1200s = 24h
O-III, 42 x 1200s binned 4x4 = 14h
S-II, 33 x 1200s  binned 4x4 = 11h
Total 49h




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