Other Names: Heart Nebula, IC 1805, LBN 654, Collinder 26, Melotte 15, Raab 11, OCL 352
Optics: Borg Astrograph 101ED at f/4.1
Mount: Atlas EQG using The Sky6, EQMOD, & MaxPilote
Camera: QSI 583WS
Filters: Astrodon Ha 3nm
Exposure: 60 Mins, [6 x 600s] Ha
Accessories: Auto guided with Borg 45ED and Orion Starshoot Auto Guider using Maxim DL guiding
Location: Rodeo, NM
Date: November 15th, 2012
Notes: Processing: Image acquisition with Maxim DL Pro using MaxPilote automation. Image calibration, align, and combine in Maxim DL Pro. Levels, curves, crop and resize in Photoshop.
Calibrated w/30 Darks, 93 Bias, 100 Flats using light box, CCD temperature was -20C. Image was taken near the Arizona Sky Village near Portal, AZ.

High Res Version: http://astromarina.zenfolio.com/img/s2/v53/p1385540944-6.jpg
HaRGB Version: http://astromarina.zenfolio.com/p178350886/h52958ab0#h52958ab0
Original RGB Version: http://astromarina.zenfolio.com/p14536770/h5295B386#h5295b386

The Heart Nebula, IC 1805, Sh2-190, lies some 7500 light years away from Earth and 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 nebula is formed by plasma of ionized hydrogen and free electrons.
The very brightest part of this nebula (the knot at the right) is separately classified as NGC 896, because it was the first part of this nebula to be discovered.
The nebula's intense red output and its configuration are driven by the radiation emanating from a small group of stars near the nebula's center. This open cluster of stars known as 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. The cluster used to contain a microquasar that was expelled millions of years ago.