Melotte 15

Melotte 15 is the center structure in the Heart Nebula. This emission nebula is one of my favorites. My focal length precludes me from imaging the entire heart nebula so I just got my favorite part instead. A mosaic of the heart nebula at 2000mm focal length would be quite the project!

I processed this image after the Helix Nebula. I took the pixel math learnings and applied it to this image. Additional tweaks seemed to help bring out the OIII more but required more color balancing. One thing I noticed is this method has significantly lower background noise than the traditional bi-color combination pixel math. This makes sense because we are multiplying the values together, so high SNR will be preferentially selected in the combined image.

R: ha
G: oiii*ha*1.25
B: (oiii * (oiii-ha)) + 1.1*oiii

The skies are finally clear after all the fires and monsoons seem to be done. I’m starting a new target and am shooting for a very long integration time. Lets see if the sky cooperates.

Gear

Telescope	Orion Optics UK ODK12
Mount	10Micron GM1000HPS
Imaging Camera	QHY163M
Guide Camera	QHY5III178
Filter Wheel	QHYCFW2
Filters	Baader HA and OIII 36mm unmounted
Focuser	FT3015B-A

Shot Details

Automation Software	TBA
Image Processing	PixInsight
Guiding	None
HA	104 x 300sec at -10°C
OIII	158 x 300sec at -10°C
Total Integration	21.8 hours
Gain	120
Offset	70
Ambient	30-35°C :sob:
Bortle	6/7
Location	Phoenix, AZ