The Notch in the Heart Nebula, IC 1805

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Photographer:

Rod Pommier

Location of Photo:

Pommier Observatory, Portland, OR, USA

Date/Time of photo:

2013-10-20 to and 2013-10-24.

Equipment:

• Telescope/Mount: Celestron Compustar C14 with 0.75x focal reducer (f/8). Camera: SBIG STL 11000M. Filters: Baader Planetarium filters.Exposures: HaRGB=450:100:100:100 minutes=12.5 hours total exposure.

Description:

• IC 1805 is known as the Heart Nebula. It is7,500 light-years from Earth in the Perseus arm of the galaxy. Melotte-15 is the star cluster at the heart of the Heart Nebula. It is an OB association of very young, hot, blue supergiant stars that is only 1.5 million years old. Fierce stellar winds from this cluster have blown the enormous bubble within the parent HII region that is the Heart Nebula. The large triangular dust cloud on the bottom left side of the image is the notch in the top of the heart. The stellar winds from Melottte-15 have also sculpted dust clouds in this region of the nebula into numerous interesting V-shaped ridges and other shapes, within which smaller stars are still forming.