Emission nebula
Heart Nebula (IC1805)
In Cassiopeia (Cas) • Magnitude 7.5 • 1.0 degrees
Open the free AstroPlanner with Heart Nebula pre-selected, scored against your telescope, location, and the live cloud forecast.
A massive Ha emission nebula in Cassiopeia, heart-shaped and dense with star formation.
Heart Nebula at a glance
| Catalog IDs | I 1805 |
| Type | Emission nebula |
| Constellation | Cassiopeia (Cas) |
| Right ascension | 02h 32m 42s |
| Declination | +61° 27' 00" |
| Apparent magnitude | 7.50 |
| Surface brightness | 15.0 mag/arcsec² |
| Angular size | 60.0 × 60.0 arcmin |
| Max altitude at 45°N | 74° |
| Best imaging months | Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec, Jan |
How to image Heart Nebula
Heart Nebula sits in the constellation Cassiopeia at right ascension 02h 32m 42s and declination +61° 27' 00". To frame and integrate it well, AstroPlanner will compute the optimal moonless window for tonight from your location, the field-of-view fit against your sensor and focal length, the suggested total integration time given your aperture and sky Bortle class, and a cloud-aware schedule that drops it from the plan if your nearest cloud forecast spike overlaps the best altitude window. As an emission nebula, Heart Nebula responds very well to dual-narrowband filters under city skies.