A first of a few images resulting from our wonderful stretch of good weather the past couple of weeks. What a treat!!
The Soul Nebula (IC 1848, Westerhout 5, Sh2-199, LBN 667) is an emission nebula located in Cassiopeia, and is about 6,500 light-years (ly) away from Earth and about 100 ly across. IC 1848 refers to the open star cluster embedded in the OIII-rich region in the body of the nebula.
Nearby (not shown in the image) is IC 1805, the Heart Nebula, which is connected to the Soul Nebula by interstellar gas, some of which can be seen in the lower left of the image at the tail end of the Soul Nebula.
Also seen in the image are the smaller emission nebulae Sh2-198 (above and to the left) and Sh2-201 (to the right near the head of the Soul Nebula.
Capture Dates: 9/10/24 – 9/16/24
Equipment
Stellarvue SVX90T Apochromatic Refractor @native 540mm fL
Guidescope/Cam: SV106 with ASI120mm mini
ASIAir Plus, ASI2600MM, ZWO AM5 mount, ZWO 7-position 2” filter wheel
Filters
Antlia 3nm Narrowband H-alpha 2": 140×300″ [5:40]
Antlia 3nm Narrowband SII 2": 128×300″ [10:40]
Antlia 3nm Narrowband OIII 2": 122×300″ [10:10]
Antlia Pro V Luminance 2”: 14x60s [0:14]
Total integration time: 32:44
Processed with PixInsight and Adobe Photoshop.
Greg, a wonderful rendition of this beautiful object. I love your colors and the detail in the image. Super!!!
Terri
p.s. I think I may be caught up! I am not getting alerts on people posting as our IT seems to be entirely hosed! I am hoping someone will get it fixed up.
@terri Thanks, Terri! This was exciting for me because it's the first time I've actually captured the Soul Nebula (at longer focal length than before) and because it was the longest integration yet using the 90T. I was happy with the result!
Greg
P.S. Yeah for getting caught up!! 😉
