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Wednesday, November 28, 2012
A new imaging project from the last night, Merlotte 15, the heart of the Heart nebula.
Image shows now just the emission of Hydrogen, H-alpha. I'll shoot other emission channels for the color image soon. 20 x 1200s frames, =6h 40min.
The heart of the Heart
Melotte 15 (Mel 15)
6h 40min. H-alpha light, image spans about 30 arch minutes vertically. (the angular size of the moon is ~30 arch miutes = 0,5 degrees)
The open cluster centered in this image is known as Melotte 15 . Melotte 15 is embedded within a central portion of the much larger glowing nebula identified as IC 1805.
The interesting structure in the center of the image is a giant area of hydrogen gas that is caused to glow by the intense ultraviolet radiation from the massive stars of the Melotte 15 star cluster.
Dust and gas clouds are twisted by the pressure of the intense radiation, the solar wind.
This formation is estimated to be 7,500 light years away from Earth, North is up.
A starless version
This experimental image shows the actual nebula without stars.
The area of interest is marked in this older wide field HST-palette image.
A study about the scale in the sky
Click for a large image
An apparent size of the Moon is marked in the images as a scale.