A blog post with more images and information


Soul Nebula, (Sh2-199, LBN 667) is an emission nebula in constellation Cassiopeia. IC 1848 is a cluster inside Soul Nebula. Distance is about 7.500 light years. This complex is a Eastern neighbor of IC 1805, the "Heart Nebula" and they are often mentioned together as Heart and Soul.





Technical details:




Processing work flow:

Image acquisition, MaxiDL v5.07.

Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack2.

Levels, curves and color combine in PS CS3.




Optics, Meade LX200 GPS 12" @ f5

Camera, QHY9

Guiding, SXV-AO, an active optics unit, and Lodestar guide camera 12Hz

Image Scale, ~0,8 arc-seconds/pixel

15 x 1200s exposures for the H-alpha, emission of ionized Hydrogen = 5h

Optics and exposures used for colors

Tokina AT-X 300mm at f2.8
QHY8, a cooled single shot color camera
Baader UHC-s filter
Baader IR-cut filter
16x900s = 4h
Color channels for a mapped-palette image, O-III and S-II, are from an older wide field image.