This paper presents oriented single-crystal Nuclear Resonance Vibrational Spectroscopy (NRVS) data for the six-coordinate (6C) ferrous heme-nitrosyl model complex [ 57 Fe(TPP)(MI)(NO)] (1; TPP 2− = tetraphenylporphyrin dianion; MI = 1-methylimidazole). The availability of these data enables for the first time the detailed simulation of the complete NRVS data, including the porphyrin-based vibrations, of a 6C ferrous heme-nitrosyl, using our quantum chemistry centered normal coordinate analysis (QCC-NCA). Importantly, the Fe-NO stretch is split by interaction with a porphyrin-based vibration into two features, observed at 437 and 472 cm −1 . The 437 cm −1 feature is strongly out-of-plane (oop) polarized and shows an 15 N 18 O isotope shift of 8 cm −1 , and is therefore assigned to ν(Fe-NO). The admixture of Fe-N-O bending character is small. Main contributions to the Fe-N-O bend are observed in the 520 -580 cm −1 region, distributed over a number of in-plane (ip) polarized porphyrin-based vibrations. The main component, assigned to δ ip (Fe-N-O), is identified with the feature at 563 cm −1 . The Fe-N-O bend also shows strong mixing with the Fe-NO stretching internal coordinate, as evidenced by the oop NRVS intensity in the 520 -580 cm −1 region. Very accurate normal mode descriptions of ν(Fe-NO) and δ ip (Fe-N-O) have been obtained in this study. These results contradict previous interpretations of the vibrational spectra of 6C ferrous heme-nitrosyls where the higher energy feature at ~550 cm −1 had usually been associated with ν(Fe-NO). Furthermore, these results provide key insight into NO binding to ferrous heme active sites in globins and other heme proteins, in particular with respect to (a) the effect of hydrogen bonding to the coordinated NO, and (b) changes in heme dynamics upon NO coordination. [Fe(TPP)(MI)(NO)] constitutes an excellent model system for ferrous NO adducts of myoglobin (Mb) mutants where the distal histidine (His64) has been removed. Comparison to the reported vibrational data for wild-type (wt) Mb-NO then shows that the effect of H-bonding to coordinated NO is weak, and mostly leads to a polarization of the π/π* orbitals of Correspondence to: Nicolai Lehnert, lehnertn@umich.edu; J. Timothy Sage, jtsage@neu.edu; W. Robert Scheidt, Scheidt.1@nd.edu. Supporting Information Complete ref. 39 , DFT-calculated NRVS spectra, complete list of force constants altered in the fit of the NRVS data of 1, vibrational assignments for the adjusted BP86/TZVP result, cartesian coordinates of the DFT-optimized structures, definition of the force field of 1 used in the QCC-NCA simulation, and complete list of force constants from the QCC-NCA fit.