The Heart nebula IC1805

With my unmodified Canon 40d I almost didn't bother to image this nebula. Although its not going to win any awards but you can see some red nebulosity and make out its distinctive shape.
Discovered in 1787 by Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel its 7500 light years away, located in the Perseus arm of our galaxy in the constellation of Cassiopeia. Its apparent size is 1 degree by 1 degree and its apparent magnitude is 6.5.
The bright stars in the middle making up a open cluster are called Mellote 15, some of which are 50 times the mass of our sun, driving the intense red plasma of ionised hydrogen and free electrons.. At its centre are two stars locked in orbit, doomed to fuse together and explode in a supernova in 700 million years, making the unique shape of the nebula .
I used 26 x 3 minute exposures at ISO1000 guided with PHD2.