Do you want to make something nice for your sweetheart for Valentine’s Day? Take a picture of the incredible Heart Nebula! That’s exactly what I did with this object. It works out perfectly, as IC 1805 makes itself most available from late autumn through late winter.

This nebula, like many other emission nebulae, is where stars are born. The glowy bits of nebula are is from ionized hydrogen, excited from the newborn stars in the center. Those stars are also responsible for the shape of the nebula, as their stellar winds have blown the gas and dust from the center.

In the heart of the Heart Nebula, you can see some incredible pillars of gas and dust slowly being eroded by the stars. With more focal length, those pillars are some of the most spectacular views in the night sky.