The Heart Nebula: IC 1805
The Heart Nebula: Taken under Michigan skies, December 13th, 2021 Discovered by William Hershel in 1787, IC 1805 was coined the Heart Nebula for having a structure that sort of resembles that of the human heart. The Heart Nebula is an emission nebula which means it's a cloudy structure of ionized gasses that emits its own light. The wavelength (or color) of light that nebulae emit at will tell you exactly what gas the cloud is composed of. The Heart Nebula emits primarily at a specific red wavelength of light: 656.3 nanometers. This wavelength of red tells us that the nebula is composed of ionized Hydrogen gas labeled Hydrogen-Alpha . Ionized hydrogen can emit at four different colors in the visible spectrum: violet, blue, light-blue and red. The hydrogen atom will release a photon at one of these wavelengths when its electron drops orbits. The photon's wavelength depends