APOD: IC 1805: The Heart Nebula (2019 Sep 11)

Comments and questions about the APOD on the main view screen.
Post Reply
User avatar
APOD Robot
Otto Posterman
Posts: 5344
Joined: Fri Dec 04, 2009 3:27 am
Contact:

APOD: IC 1805: The Heart Nebula (2019 Sep 11)

Post by APOD Robot » Wed Sep 11, 2019 4:08 am

Image IC 1805: The Heart Nebula

Explanation: What energizes the Heart Nebula? First, the large emission nebula dubbed IC 1805 looks, in whole, like a human heart. The nebula glows brightly in red light emitted by its most prominent element: hydrogen. The red glow and the larger shape are all powered by a small group of stars near the nebula's center. In the center of the Heart Nebula are young stars from the open star cluster Melotte 15 that are eroding away several picturesque dust pillars with their energetic light and winds. The open cluster of stars contains a few bright stars nearly 50 times the mass of our Sun, many dim stars only a fraction of the mass of our Sun, and an absent microquasar that was expelled millions of years ago. The Heart Nebula is located about 7,500 light years away toward the constellation of Cassiopeia. 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 Fishhead Nebula.

<< Previous APOD This Day in APOD Next APOD >>

User avatar
Ann
4725 Å
Posts: 13369
Joined: Sat May 29, 2010 5:33 am

Re: APOD: IC 1805: The Heart Nebula (2019 Sep 11)

Post by Ann » Wed Sep 11, 2019 6:02 am

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 Fishhead Nebula.

As I was fishing around for Hubble palette images to compare with today's APOD, I found one that I really admired, this one by Terry Hancock. So not even I dislike all narrowband Hubble palette images.

Ann
Color Commentator

Boomer12k
:---[===] *
Posts: 2691
Joined: Sun Apr 22, 2007 12:07 am

Re: APOD: IC 1805: The Heart Nebula (2019 Sep 11)

Post by Boomer12k » Wed Sep 11, 2019 9:56 am

I think it is a really nice image...

:---[===] *

User avatar
neufer
Vacationer at Tralfamadore
Posts: 18805
Joined: Mon Jan 21, 2008 1:57 pm
Location: Alexandria, Virginia

Re: APOD: IC 1805: The Heart Nebula (2019 Sep 11)

Post by neufer » Wed Sep 11, 2019 12:27 pm

APOD Robot wrote: Wed Sep 11, 2019 4:08 am
A small meteor was captured in the foreground during imaging and is visible above the dust pillars.

At the top right is the companion Fishhead Nebula.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amor_Vincit_Omnia_(Caravaggio) wrote:
<<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 Michelangelo's Victory now in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, and it is likely the artist had this in mind.>>
Art Neuendorffer

User avatar
orin stepanek
Plutopian
Posts: 8200
Joined: Wed Jul 27, 2005 3:41 pm
Location: Nebraska

Re: APOD: IC 1805: The Heart Nebula (2019 Sep 11)

Post by orin stepanek » Wed Sep 11, 2019 12:34 pm

HeartNebula_Falls_960.jpg
Wow! Wonderful photo of the Heart Nebula! Really captures the the unusual shape of a real heart! :mrgreen: The detail is marvelous! 8-)
Orin

Smile today; tomorrow's another day!

starsurfer
Stellar Cartographer
Posts: 5306
Joined: Thu Mar 15, 2012 7:25 pm

Re: APOD: IC 1805: The Heart Nebula (2019 Sep 11)

Post by starsurfer » Wed Sep 11, 2019 12:43 pm

APOD Robot wrote: Wed Sep 11, 2019 4:08 am The nebula glows brightly in red light emitted by its most prominent element: hydrogen.
Since this is a mapped colour narrowband, I think it should say that it only looks red in true colour.

User avatar
Chris Peterson
Abominable Snowman
Posts: 18102
Joined: Wed Jan 31, 2007 11:13 pm
Location: Guffey, Colorado, USA
Contact:

Re: APOD: IC 1805: The Heart Nebula (2019 Sep 11)

Post by Chris Peterson » Wed Sep 11, 2019 1:17 pm

Ann wrote: Wed Sep 11, 2019 6:02 am What kind of an image is it, though?
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.)
Chris

*****************************************
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
https://www.cloudbait.com

TheOtherBruce
Science Officer
Posts: 102
Joined: Wed Jul 17, 2019 6:07 pm

Re: APOD: IC 1805: The Heart Nebula (2019 Sep 11)

Post by TheOtherBruce » Thu Sep 12, 2019 11:02 pm

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.
This universe shipped by weight, not by volume.
Some expansion of the contents may have occurred during shipment.

Post Reply