The Heart Nebula, as it is known, covers an area in the sky about about 4x4 full moons in size. A group of powerful stars at the center is exciting the surrounding gasses and causing them to glow.
Captured over 3 nights in October in my Portland backyard using a 530mm F5 refractor, QHY600 Mono camera (IMX455), Narrowband Ha, OIII, and SII filters. 18 twenty minute exposures were taken with each of the three filters and then stacked into color channel masters. A total of 18 hours of exposure time.
CCDStack, Pixinsight, Photoshop CC, and Topaz Denoise were used.
this is inspiring. one of these days I am going to be able to do deep sky . I admire your dedication to the capture and also in post. nice work
John, I hope you give it a try. With the narrowband filters you don’t have to travel so you can take many nights to make mistakes and learn.