The Heart Nebula is an emission nebula in the Cassiopeia constellation. The light from this left the Heart Nebula 7,500 years ago and thankfully found its way to my telescope. It’s massive at 165 light years across. Between Oct 9 and Oct 16, 2024, I captured almost 43 hours of data for this image.

I used Siril’s OSC_Extract_HaOIII script and a 60/40 Ha/OIII split on the green channel.

Click here for the full-sized image.

My Lightbucket imaging log is here.

Details:

• Explore Scientific ED127
• Hotech SCA flattener
• STF-8300C camera with an L-eXtreme filter
• Losmandy G11 mount on a custom BoldMFG pier
• 256x 600sec sub-exposures (42.67 hours) from my Bortle ~5 backyard
• Captured in NINA
• Processed in an HOO palette with Siril, GraXpert, Photoshop, NXT & Cosmic Clarity