A blog post about this object with more info and images.

Since this new image of mine was overlapping with the Melotte 15 image, I made a two frame mosaic out of them.


The "Heart Nebula", IC1805 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.


Technical details


Processing work flow:
Image acquisition, MaxiDL v5.07.
Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack2.
Levels, curves and color combine in PS CS3.


Optics, Meade LX200 GPS 12" @ f5
Camera, QHY9
Guiding, SXV-AO, an active optics unit, and Lodestar guide camera 8Hz
Image Scale, ~0,8 arc-seconds/pixel
18 x 1200s exposures for the H-alpha, emission of ionized Hydrogen = 6h
Narrowband cahnnels for ionized Oxygen and Sulfur are taken from an older wide field images