Melotte 15 narrowband

[RickS (Rick)]

Melotte 15 is the the open cluster at the centre of the Heart Nebula, Sharpless 2-190, in Cassiopeia. Captured with our shared scope at SRO in California during Sep-Dec 2014 and processed in a heavily modified Hubble palette. This is a small crop of the larger field.

Scope: Ceravolo C300 @ f/4.9 = 1470mm FL
Mount: AP1100
Camera: FLI PL16803
Focuser: Atlas
Filters: Astrodon
Guiding: Lodestar II / Tak guide scope
Image scale: 1.26 arcsec/pixel (drizzled 2x)
Exposures: 17x1800s Ha, 20x1800s Oiii, 24x1800s Sii (30.5 hours)
Processing: PixInsight 1.8

Acquisition credit: John Kasianowicz, Daniele Malleo, Leonardo Orazi, Rob Pfile, Rick Stevenson and Jerry Yesavage.
Processing credit: Rick Stevenson

Full res here: http://www.astrobin.com/full/238054/0/?real=&mod=

Cheers,
Rick.

[Andy01 (Andy)]

Holy night sky Batman, that's STUNNING!

I only have one more word, APOD!

I'm going to hide my head in the sand now with the rest of the unworthy.

[RickS (Rick)]

Very kind of you, Andy, but this is an object done to death by Northern hemisphere folks and I think it would take a very special version to get an APOD. I guess I could add the ISS and some rings

[IanP]

Originally Posted by RickS

I guess I could add the ISS and some rings

THAT WOULD NOT BE ENOUGH. Hydrogen BOMB, Rick ...

Nice one ...

[DJScotty (Scott)]

Oh wow Rick. That's nice
Great processing.

[Ryderscope (Rodney)]

That's stunning Rick. The colour palette works well. The dark dust ridges along the nebula seem to provide a 3D effect. Very nice viewing indeed.

[Somnium (Aidan)]

simply stunning Rick

[DJT (David)]

Hi Rick et al
Stands up really well to zooming in and out at full res on the iPad. Nicely done, quality data and subtle processing.

[RickS (Rick)]

Thanks very much Ian, Scott, Rodney, Aidan and David!

[codemonkey (Lee)]

Great work Rick!

[topheart]

Beautiful!

Thanks,
Tim

[RickS (Rick)]

Thanks Lee & Tim!

[Atmos (Colin)]

Lovely shot Rick, to me it looks like it has been done with the cross between a pastel and airbrush Remove the stars and you'll have yourself a lovely painting

[Placidus (Mike and Trish)]

Rick, that's magnificent.

The eroded structures are most intriguing, with their razor sharp edges, thick dust, and the strong OIII speaking to powerful forces.

The processing of the stars is faultless.

Best,
Mike

[RickS (Rick)]

Thanks, Colin. I did actually remove the stars to process the colour for the image (I use a process based on JPM's Tone Mapping) but they get added back with the Luminance.

I have done the occasional image with stars completely removed but I'm never entirely happy with them. I guess I'm never 100% happy with the images with stars either

Cheers,
Rick.

[RickS (Rick)]

Thanks, Mike! Very kind of you.

[nebulosity. (Jo)]

Great image Rick!

Cheers
Jo

[RickS (Rick)]

Thanks, Jo.

[andyc (Andy)]

Very fine image Rick. rick colours and nice inky depth on the dark nebula to the lower left. I enjoyed exploring the view on your Astrobin site!

[astronobob (Bob)]

Spectacular target and grouse Image there for the wall Rick, quite rich colours and the compo is great - good levels of light Ect, Nice show