Starship Asterisk*

I can't shake the impression the Fishhead at top right is actually a big chunk of the Heart that got tossed thataway after an Earth(and lots of other stuff) shattering kaboom. Almost definitely an illusion, I know, but the apparent ring of dark nebulosity — maybe a swirl of interstellar dust? — just behind the blue patch isn't helping.

A spectacular image nonetheless, especially the bit to left of centre. Very reminiscent of the "Pillars of Creation" in the Eagle Nebula.

[quote=Ann post_id=295138 time=1568181743 user_id=129702]
What kind of an image is it, though?[/quote]

Sadly, we are left to guess. I sincerely wish that APOD would adopt a policy of not publishing images lacking technical details. This image is simply of no interest to me without such information.

(Presumably, however, the meteor was processed out and then processed back in, or it would be rendered in some color depending upon which filter it was collected through.)

[quote="APOD Robot" post_id=295137 time=1568174906 user_id=128559]
The nebula glows brightly in red light emitted by its most prominent element: [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen]hydrogen[/url].
[/quote]
Since this is a mapped colour narrowband, I think it should say that it only looks red in true colour.

[attachment=0]HeartNebula_Falls_960.jpg[/attachment]Wow! Wonderful photo of the Heart Nebula! Really captures the the unusual shape of a real heart! :mrgreen: The detail is marvelous! 8-)

[quote="APOD Robot" post_id=295137 time=1568174906 user_id=128559]

[b][color=#0000FF]A small meteor was captured in the foreground during imaging and is visible above the dust pillars.[/color][/b]

At the top right is the companion [url=https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap141224.html]Fishhead Nebula[/url]. [/quote][quote=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amor_Vincit_Omnia_(Caravaggio)]


[float=left][img3=Amor Vincit Omnia (1601–1602)]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/df/Amor_Vincet_Omnia.jpg/800px-Amor_Vincet_Omnia.jpg[/img3][/float]

<<Amor Vincit Omnia ("Love Conquers All" is a [1601–1602] painting by the Italian Baroque artist Caravaggio.

Amor Vincit Omnia shows Amor, the Roman Cupid, wearing dark eagle wings, half-sitting on or perhaps climbing down from what appears to be a table. Scattered around are the emblems of all human endeavours – violin and lute, armour, coronet, square and compasses, pen and manuscript, bay leaves, and flower, tangled and trampled under Cupid’s foot.

The painting illustrates the line from Virgil's Eclogues X.69, Omnia vincit amor et nos cedamus amori ("Love conquers all; let us all yield to love!"). A musical manuscript on the floor shows a large "V".

The subject was common for the age. Caravaggio’s treatment is remarkable for the realism of his Cupid – where other depictions, such as a contemporary Sleeping Cupid by Battistello Caracciolo, show an idealised, almost generic, beautiful boy, Caravaggio’s Cupid is highly individual, charming but not at all beautiful, all crooked teeth and crooked grin: one feels that one would recognise him in the street. The shock of the Caravaggio, quite apart from the dramatic chiaroscuro lighting and the photographic clarity, is the mingling of the allegorical and the real, this sense it gives of a child who is having a thoroughly good time dressing up in stage-prop wings with a bunch of arrows and having his picture painted. Nevertheless, despite the clear indications of Caravaggio’s practice of painting direct from a live model, there is an undeniable resemblance to the pose of [url=https://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/arts/artwork/michelangelo-sculptures17.htm]Michelangelo's Victory[/url] now in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, and it is likely the artist had this in mind.>>[/quote]

I think it is a really nice image...

:---[===] *

Thank you very much for this beautiful picture of the Heart Nebula!

It is no secret that I'm usually not very happy with the OIII-Hα-SII narrowband Hubble palette pictures of nebulas. But I'm well aware that narrowband imagery (which necessitates mapped color finished pictures) are much easier to produce than sharp and highly resolved RGB images, which means that Hubble palette images are well within reach for amateurs with modest equipment. It's no wonder that these narrowband nebula images are popular among amateur astrophotographers, but this means that my expectations are usually not very high when I learn that the next APOD will be a nebula image.

Yes, but look at this APOD of the Heart Nebula! So beautiful! :D

What kind of an image is it, though? It is not RGB. It could well be a narrowband image after all. If so, though, the photographer has cleverly tweaked the colors so that most of the nebula is dominated by red Hα (and maybe SII), the way it would be in real life. Only where the inoization is really high do we see the blue (or rather cyan) color of, I assume, OIII.

Note how the cyan patches highlight the hottest stars in the Heart Nebula and the massive star formation going on in the [url=https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/1412/ic1795_snyder_960.jpg]Fishhead Nebula[/url].

As I was fishing around for Hubble palette images to compare with today's APOD, I found one that I really admired, [url=https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/1303/heart_hancock_960.jpg]this one[/url] by Terry Hancock. So not even I dislike all narrowband Hubble palette images.

Ann

[url=https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap190911.html] [img]https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/calendar/S_190911.jpg[/img] [size=150]IC 1805: The Heart Nebula[/size][/url]

[b] Explanation: [/b] What energizes the Heart Nebula? First, the large [url=https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/emission_nebulae.html]emission nebula[/url] dubbed [url=https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap040917.html]IC 1805[/url] looks, in whole, like a [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWkeidr2T8o]human heart[/url]. The nebula glows brightly in red light emitted by its most prominent element: [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen]hydrogen[/url]. The red glow and the larger shape are all powered by a small group of stars near the [url=https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap141018.html]nebula's center[/url]. In the center of the [url=https://www.instagram.com/p/B1zDeLAFp8p/]Heart Nebula[/url] are young stars from the open star cluster [url=https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap131227.html]Melotte 15[/url] that are eroding away several picturesque [url=https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap160424.html]dust pillars[/url] with their [url=https://science.nasa.gov/ems/10_ultravioletwaves]energetic light[/url] and winds. The [url=http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=18009]open cluster[/url] of stars contains a few [url=https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2006A%26A...456.1121D/abstract]bright stars[/url] nearly 50 times the mass of our [url=https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/solar-system/sun/overview/]Sun[/url], many dim stars only a fraction of the mass of our Sun, and an [url=https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap040916.html]absent microquasar[/url] that was expelled millions of years ago. The [url=https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap031022.html]Heart Nebula[/url] is located about 7,500 [url=http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/questions/question19.html]light years[/url] away toward the [url=http://modernconstellations.com/constellationhistory.html]constellation[/url] of [url=http://messier.seds.org/map/Cas.html]Cassiopeia[/url]. Coincidentally, a small meteor was captured in the foreground during imaging and is visible above the dust pillars. At the top right is the companion [url=https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap141224.html]Fishhead Nebula[/url].


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