Melotte 15,  known as "The Heart of the Heart,"   "The Running Dog Nebula," Sharpless 162, and Caldwell 11 - is an open cluster with associated emission and reflection nebula that is located 7,100 light-years away in the constellation of Cassiopeia.  This intriguing structure is located in the core region of IC 1805 - The Heart Nebula, thus called "The Heart of the Heart."

Unlike my previous image (NGC 7635 - The Bubble Nebula), I was very happy with how this image turned out!

This image results from 5.5 hours of narrowband data and is rendered in the SHO Hubble Palette.

The data was collected over two nights ending on October 22nd. This image is the third project completed from data collected at that time.

This image was shot on my William Optics 132mm FLT APO telescope platform, which uses a ZWO ASI1600MM-Pro camera, and is supported by an IOptron CEM60 Mount. 

As I have discussed before, this data collection effort was cut short by illness, so none of the projects resulting from this had my desired integration time (the story of my life!).  So I needed to be careful with my processing to ensure a good result from limited data. 

The image was processed by using a Synthetic Computed Luminance image and extensive use of starless processing workflows.  With this approach,  the luminance processing path is designed to enhance detail and sharpness, while the color processing path is dedicated to producing good color and low noise. The two images are then folded together to create a final image that inherits the best attributes of both images. 

I wondered what would happen if I was super aggressive in enhancing the detail and sharpness of the luminance image.  So I created two versions of the Lum image - one aggressively processed and one that was more carefully and selectively processed with a lighter touch.  This post covers the results of that experiment, 

The full story behind this image, along with a detailed processing walkthrough, can be found at:
https://cosgrovescosmos.com/projects/melotte15

A video of the blink analysis for this data is also available if interested:
https://youtu.be/U7yeAegGhfQ

Finally, a video on my YouTube channel provides a high-level view of the processing strategy for this image:
https://youtu.be/PeneA2OZHXE

Please consider liking and following my fledgling YouTube channel!  ( If nothing else you can laugh at my attempts to learn the video side of things!)

Thanks for looking!

Pat