The Heart Nebula: Print

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The Heart Nebula is an emission nebula, 7,500 light-years away from Earth and located in the Perseus Arm of the Galaxy in the constellation Cassiopeia. This image was taken over a period of 12 months and shot through narrow-band filters. A total of 39 hours at 20 minute exposure times. The colour of the image is known as "The Hubble Palette". 

The Hubble Palette is a colour mapping technique used in astrophotography to enhance and differentiate the details of celestial objects, such as nebulae, captured by telescopes. It assigns specific colours to different wavelengths of light: typically, sulphur-II (SII) emissions are mapped to red, hydrogen-alpha (Ha) emissions to green, and oxygen-III (OIII) emissions to blue. This technique highlights features that are not visible to the naked eye, creating vibrant and detailed images of space phenomena.