Here is an image of Melotte 15, the open cluster embedded in the Heart Nebula. This image is a compilation of almost 16h of data spread over about 3 weeks. It is a first, in my experience, in that no noise reduction has been necessary: there is no obvious noise in the data, and noise reduction steps only resulted in a slight loss of detail with no gain in apparent noise.
This version of the image (I have tried many of them) has RGB stars, derived from a few LRGB frames, and integrated using PixInsight’s PixelMath process, passing via the L*a*b space. I had tried this unsatisfactorily a few times but finally found a PixInsight forum post by RickS (
https://pixinsight.com/forum/index.php?topic=6486.0) which filled in the remaining blanks.
The field of view of my system is not sufficient to frame the whole of the Heart Nebula. My next project is another part of the nebula.
Melotte 15 is one of 245 entries in the catalogue of star clusters compiled by Philibert Jacques Melotte, a British astronomer, whose parents were Belgian. It is about 7,500 light-years away.
Acquisition: between 15 Jan 2020 and 6 Feb 2020
SII - 54 x 300s
Ha - 73 x 300s
OIII - 61 x 300s
Hubble Palette
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