IC 1848 - THE SOUL NEBULA (Sharpless 2-199, W-5)
The Soul Nebula, an emission nebula, is a dramatic star-forming region in Cassiopeia. Its shape looks like a fetus or newborn chicken. It's very large in size so this image is a two panel mosaic. Total exposure time for all filters was over 43 hours.
(CLICK ON IMAGE FOR HIGHEST RESOLUTION):
Here is the CFHT Palette result, which maps Ha=Red, OIII=Green, and SII=Blue:
Here is the Hubble Palette result, which maps as SII=Red, Ha=Green, and OIII=Blue:
Image acquisition and processing details:
| Telescope: | Takahashi Epsilon 180, f/2.8 |
| Mount: | Astro-Physics AP1200. |
| Camera: | SBIG ST-10XME cooled to -25C or -30C, internal guiding. |
| Filters, Exposure Times: | AstroDon 6nm Hydrogen Alpha 1240 min, OIII 1190 min, and SII 1170 min (10 min subframes for all). Additional data was obtained but discarded. |
| Dates: | Nov 1-10 and Nov 14-19, 2008. |
| Moon Phase: | Various from new to full. |
| Location: | Xanadu Observatory. |
| Software: | CCDCommander, MaximDL, FocusMax, TheSky, CCDInspector, CCDStack, Adobe Photoshop CS4. |
| Notes: | This was a two-panel mosaic. I had a very difficult time
stitching the top and bottom together, and eventually had success using
CCDStack's CCDIS plug-in after cropping the ragged edges that result
from dithering during image acquisition. Some of the data was acquired while I was away attending the 2008 Advanced Imaging Conference in San Jose, CA. I used LogMeIn to remotely control my system in the back yard. |