The Heart Nebula is an emission nebula, 7,500 light-years (2,300 pc) away from Earth and located in the Perseus Arm of the Galaxy in the constellation Cassiopeia.

Click the image to zoom in (4 steps), then again for full view · open full resolutionSky location chart · click to zoom in (4 steps), then again for full view · open full resolution

The Heart Nebula is an emission nebula, 7,500 light-years (2,300 pc) away from Earth and located in the Perseus Arm of the Galaxy in the constellation Cassiopeia. It was discovered by William Herschel on 3 November 1787. In 1958, it was identified as a radio source by Gart Westerhout and is therefore also referred to as Westerhout 4 . It displays glowing ionized hydrogen gas and darker dust lanes.

[Source: Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_Nebula]

Sky Location

The chart above shows where this image sits on the night sky. The yellow outline is its field of view, with the picture itself drawn at its true orientation; north is up and east is left. Click the chart to zoom in, and use "open full resolution" for the full-size chart.

Image Details

Moon Phase:New Moon
Camera:Seestar S50 Pro (4K Sony IMX585 sensor)
Optics:260 mm focal length, f/5.2, 50 mm aperture
Filter:LP
Binning:1x1
Stacking:StackingWizard, 55 frames, 39-pointing mosaic
Date:2026-09-12
Number of images:55
Exposure per image:60 s
Total imaging time:55 min

AstroWizard Processing

  1. Color calibration
  2. BlurXTerminator (0.3)
  3. NoiseXTerminator (0.9) (x2)