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IC 1805


The skies on Thursday evening were for the second time. Very clear. This allowed me to use my Canon 1000D and 200mm telephoto lens, on the Heart Nebula.

I shot 24 x 5-minute exposures for this nebula, through an Optilong UHC filter.

The Heart Nebula (IC 1805) is an emission nebula located at an approximate distance of about 7,500 light years from Earth, in the constellation Cassiopeia.
It is also known as Sharpless 2-190 (Sh2-190) or the Running Dog Nebula because, when seen through a telescope, it looks a bit like a running dog.  I have not seen or heard this name before.
The nebula has an apparent magnitude of 18.3 and an absolute magnitude of 6.5. It is 150 arcminutes in size and known for its intensely red glowing gas and dark dust lanes forming a shape that resembles a heart symbol.

The Heart Nebula forms a famous complex known as the Heart and Soul with its smaller neighbour Westerhout 5, also known as the Soul Nebula, which lies just 2.5 degrees to the southeast.

These two objects are visible through Richfield telescopes. But I suspect you will need a Hbeta filter to see them visually.

This picture was not easy to process. I had to take care not clip the background, and also making sure the colour was not overdone.

It was shot through a 200mm F4.5 Zeiss Pentacon lens, fitted to my Canon 1000D. These lenses can be bought cheaply of eBay, and are ideal for widefield deep sky imaging. I prefer the Pentacon range of manual focus lenses. These lenses, are excellent value for money and have a very good colour correction.


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