When I started with astrophotography I soon realized that there is a nebula out there called the Heart Nebula named because of its shape looking like a cartoon of the heart. I work as a cardiologist and just knew that I had to capture it. Some early trials to photograph this nebula really didn’t work out, but this image I think came out fine. This astrophoto image is one of few that I have printed, and I actually put it on the wall in the hospital where I work – the Heart Nebula captured by a cardiologist at the Department of Cardiology… When I retire I suppose the staff will throw it in the garbage. Or maybe they will keep it to remember me by. Who knows…
Here I used the telescope Zenithstar 73 with a focal length of 430 mm together with the ZWO 2600MM camera. I took 24 x 300 second exposures with each of the Ha, Oiii and SII filters, total exposure time 6 hours.
The Heart Nebula is 7500 light years away in the constellation of Cassiopeia and it covers an area about four times that of the diameter of the full moon
Melotte 15 open star cluster
If you zoom in to the center of the Heart nebula there are some interesting details that stands out and are well worth photographing. This region is called Melotte 15 which is an open star cluster surrounded by gas clouds of hydrogen, oxygen and sulphur.
To capture this region I used the ZWO 2600MM camera with the Celestron 8″ EdgeHD telescope. The Ha, Oiii and SII filters were used (narrow band imaging).