IC 1805: The Heart Nebula from the City

IC 1805, the Heart Nebula, is an emission nebula in the constellation Cassiopeia, about 7,500 light years away and roughly 200 light years across. Its glow is powered by the young, massive stars of the open cluster Melotte 15 at its center, whose radiation and winds carve the surrounding hydrogen and oxygen gas into dark pillars and bright ridges.

I captured it from my home city of Jaipur, India, under heavily light-polluted Bortle 8-9 skies, over three nights (30 September, 3 and 4 October 2026). A dual-narrowband filter pulled the nebula out of the city glow, and a small refractor on a portable star-tracking mount collected over nine hours of data. It shows that deep-sky imaging is still possible from the city.

Telescope: William Optics GT71 refractor
Mount: Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer GTi
Camera: ZWO ASI533MC Pro (one-shot color)
Filter: Optolong L-Ultimate 2" dual-narrowband (Hα + OIII)
Controller: ZWO ASIAIR Plus
Guiding: SVBony SV165 30mm f/4 guide scope + ZWO ASI120MM Mini
Exposure: 110 x 300 s (about 9 h 10 min total)

Each night was calibrated and stacked in Siril, then the nights were combined into one final stack. Final stretching and adjustments were done in Adobe Photoshop.