Night Photography nominee

This image was captured on my back porch in a small town in Illinois. This is a photo of the Heart and Soul nebulae. The Heart is on the left and the soul is on the right. The area of our night sky this image covers is huge. Actually 40 full moons can be placed in this image field. I was using a 130mm telescopic lens with a focal length of 455mm. The image was taken at ISO 1600 and a total accumulated duration of 3.5 hours. This is a vast star forming region about 7,500 light years from us in the constellation Cassiopeia.

I'm an amateur photographer specializing in the night sky. I have received some awards for my photography and have been featured in magazines and my work has also appeared in astronomy books. My photography was placed on hold for many years due to my career. However, at the end of 2017, I resumed my imaging of the night sky and I'm trying to make up for lost time. It takes a lot of time and effort to take the photos and then to take this data and post process it. But it's a labor of love.