IC 1805 - The Heart Nebula

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This wonderfully named area of nebulosity lies in the constellation of Cassiopia at a distance of approximately 7 500 light years. The name comes from it's resemblance to a biological heart with ventricles and atria rather than a Valentine's type heart. It is part of a wide area of nebulosity in this part of the sky. The projecting nebulosity at the bottom right is NGC 896 and the small open cluster at the centre is Melotte 15. This cluster is likely to be all you will see when visually observing. It covers a wide area of sky benefitting from larger CCDs and short focal lengths.

Date:Taken over 2 nights late September 2008.

Scope: Skywatcher ED80 with William Optics 0.8 reducer and flattener.

Camera: QHY8, Astronomik 13nm Ha filter used for bulk of the exposures.

Exposure details: 15x800 seconds with the Ha filter and 9x300 seconds unfiltered.

Captured and combined with Maxim. Processing completed in Photoshop.

The QHY8 has quite a large OSC chip. Despite the flattener the field is far from flat with star elongation in the corners. In part this was due to incorrect spacing but also reflects the limitation of the optics used. It started my hankering for an FSQ 106!