“Look how they gaze upon me, as if I’m a final frontier, a beacon for their wandering eyes. They forget that what they see is only the beginning—I’m but a nursery, where new stars quietly rise.”
IC1848 – Soul Nebula – SHO (Hubble Palette)
Description
The Soul Nebula is an emission nebula located in Cassiopeia. Several small open star clusters are embedded in the nebula. The object is more commonly called by the cluster designation IC 1848 and is also referred to as the baby nebula.
Small emission nebula IC 1871 is present just left of the top of the head, and small emission nebulae 670 and 669 are just below the lower back area.
This complex is the eastern neighbor of IC1805 (Heart Nebula) and the two are often mentioned together as the “Heart and Soul”.
Image Information
| Object(s) Catalog No. | IC1848 |
| Object Type | Emission Nebula |
| Constellation | Cassiopeia |
| Size | 40′ x 10′ |
| 10Magnitude | 6.5 |
| Distance | 2185.5 ly |
Conditions
| Date | September 16-18 , 2024 |
| Astronomical Dusk: | 20h40 |
| Moon Age | 14.2 days (99.7% illumination) |
| Moon Phase | Waxing Gibbous |
| Temperature | Approximately 8 degree Celcius |
| Transparency | Average |
| Seeing | Average |
| Wind | 11 km/h |
| Humidity | 74% |
| Sky ADU | n/a |
| Sky Flux (e/min) | n/a |
Equipment
Software
| Mount | CGEM – OnStep Retrofit |
| Imaging Scope | Modified Orion ED80T CF |
| Guiding Scope | APM 60mm Image Maste |
| Imaging Camera | ASI294M Pro |
| Guiding Camera | QHY5L-II-M |
| Additional Optics | SharpStar Field Flattener – 2.5″ |
| Filters | Antlia SHO 3nm Pro filters |
| Acquisition | N.I.N.A. |
| Auto-Guiding | PHD2 |
| Processing | Pixinsight |
Acquisition Details
Number of files acquired: (51.4GB)
– 80 (Kept 79) Lights
– 180 Flats
– 70 Darks and Flat Darks
Total Integration Time: 9 hours
Single or Multiple Nights: 2 Nights
Start Time – Stop Time: [20h30 – 2h-3h]
| Filters | L | R | G | B | Ha | OII | SII |
| Camera Temperature | -10 | -10 | -10 | ||||
| Binning | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||||
| Number of sub-frames | 40 | 20 | 20 | ||||
| Sub-frames duration (sec) | 300 | 600 | 600 | ||||
| Number of good sub-frames | 40 | 17 | 17 | ||||
| Number of Flats | 60 | 60 | 60 | ||||
| Flats Duration (sec) | 20 | 20 | 20 | ||||
| Number of Darks | 30 | 20 | 20 | ||||
| Number of Flat Darks | 30 | 30 | 30 | ||||
| Darks Duration (sec) | 300 | 600 | 600 | ||||
| Number of Bias | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Auto-Focuser Position: 3027
Autoguiding Average 0.72″
Acquisition Notes
Shot with new Antlia 3nm Pro filters SII, Ha and OIII during full moon! Totally surprised to be able to do this. These filters are quite good.
Processing Notes
I had to redo my darks and flat darks because the previous master darks where not correcting the amp glow. The narrowband color calibration was surprisingly easy to do. The Anlita filters seems to be better “color balanced” than my previous Baader filters.