The Heart Nebula

The Heart Nebula captured last night (Oct 3, 2026) from my front yard. This is a large faint emission nebula, 7,500 light-years away from Earth and located in the Perseus Arm of the Galaxy in the constellation Cassiopeia. The brightest part of the nebula is a knot at its western edge and classified as NGC 896.

I used a newly acquired 7nm dual narrow band filter to greatly reduce light pollution and enhance the Hydrogen and Oxygen colors. The filter results in tremendous light loss so I had to use exposure times of 240 sec. for a total of 40 exposures. Total integration time of over 2.5 hours. This is very taxing on a non cooled mirrorless camera. To bring out more detail I need another 6 hours of integration time.