Melotte 15 — the center of the Heart Nebula IC 1805

Not the most popular target for astrophotography: the Heart Nebula is usually captured as a wide-field shot with shorter focal lengths. But this close-up work became very significant for me: first, I surpassed my usual limit of shooting one object in a single night with about 3 hours total exposure across channels. Here, I worked for three full nights: September 28, 30, and October 1, and collected 5 hours and 20 minutes! A personal record!

Moreover, completely different processing techniques were applied here, allowing me to pull this masterpiece out of my seemingly unremarkable (but upon closer inspection, full of potential) raw files. At least for me, it's a masterpiece—all my other works can be thrown out as unnecessary.

And just a reminder: I shoot from Moscow, inside the MKAD, on a warm roof with convection, surrounded by illuminated buildings—for my hellish shooting conditions, this result is more than valuable.