Palmito
Well-known member
Heart Nebula - IC1805
The nebula gets its red(*) color from the large amount of excited hydrogen gas (H-alpha). Nebulae are nurseries of stars, they are areas where stars are born.Located in the Cassiopeia constellation at 7,500 light years away from us (about 75,000,000,000,000,000 km, 75 million billion km ?!), it is 100 light years in diameter.
It was discovered by William Herschel in 1787, a pioneer of astronomy. It is thanks to the telescopes he built that we were able to discover the richness of the universe around us, and that 100 years before the invention of photography!
The stellar cluster contains very young stars, super giant blue stars that are about 1.5 million years old (compared to 4.6 billion years for our sun). At the center, several very bright stars are nearly 50 times the mass of the sun.
* It should be noted that when we speak of red, we mean it in its natural colors. Here, an artistic choice has been made so that excited sulfur (SII) is red, excited hydrogen (H-alpha) is green, and excited oxygen is blue. This color palette allows for better differentiation of the different gases and was made popular by Hubble. Therefore, it is often called the Hubble palette.
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It should be noted that the version shared here is "only" 8677x5670px
For a full version (17354x11340): https://www.astrobin.com/btzf0t/C/
And full quality version (33709x22680): https://www.elveteek.ch/en/ic1805
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I don't know why I could get the full image to display, so here is Melotte 15
Click here for the full IC1805 :
View attachment IC1805_SHO_signed_lowres_LQ.jpg
