Fish Head & Heart Nebulae (IC1795/1805)


The Fish Head (IC1795) is the bright region in the upper left.  The Heart (IC1805) is the entire right side.

This Heart Nebula image is a mosaic of 2 frames, captured at Wa-chur-ed Observatory using narrowband filters (hydrogen-alpha, sulfur-2, and oxygen-3).  The OIII and SII filters used have a bandwidth of 12nm, which is not very narrow for these spectral lines, so there is only a small variation in the dominant red (hydrogen) color.

The Heart is an emission nebula in the constellation Cassiopeia and about 7,500 light years from Earth. It does look like a heart, sort of. I suspect that the neighboring Soul Nebula (also about 7,500 light years distant) was named just to satisfy the urge to put “Heart” and “Soul” together.

Scope: AT111EDT at f/5.6
Mount: AP Mach1
Camera: QSI 583 at –20C

Exposure: H-a/OIII/SII, 2 frames of 7 hrs, 14 hrs total


About Greg Marshall

I am a retired electronics engineer and after a few months of enjoying my leisure I began to miss doing product development. My astronomy hobby always needed new solutions to unique problems, so I decided that whenever I came up with a good solution I would try to make it available to others.

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