IC 1848

IC 1848, known as the “Soul Nebula”  is a large (150´) emission nebula, a cloud of cosmic gas and dust 150 lightyears wide that's being illuminated and carved by powerful streams of charged particles emanating from an open cluster of stars. This complex,  located in Cassiopeia and about 6,500 lightyears away is the eastern neighbour of IC1805 (Heart Nebula).

I have imaged the central part of the nebula using my William Optics APO refractor, which has a field-of-view of about 90´ therefore only the central part of the nebula was covered at three wavelengths corresponding to H-alpha, S[II] and O[III] at 656, 672, 500 (nm), respectively.

IC 1848 (Soul Nebula, central part), 4 & 5 October 2024, Kempen,  William Optics APO f/7, f = 770 mm 

H-alpha (9600 s),  ASI1600mm pro, gain 139, T = -10C, Image processing with PixInsight V1.8.9

IC 1848 (Soul Nebula, central part), 4, 5 & 6 October 2024, Kempen,  William Optics APO f/7, f = 770 mm 

H-alpha (red, 9600 s),  O[III] (green, 6000 s) ASI1600mm pro, gain 139, T = -10C, 

Image processing with PixInsight V1.8.9

IC 1848 (Soul Nebula, central part), 4, 5 & 6 October 2024, Kempen,  William Optics APO f/7, f = 770 mm 

S[II] (red, 6000 s),  O[III] (blue, 6000 s) ASI1600mm pro, gain 139, T = -10C, 

Image processing with PixInsight V1.8.9

The “Heart Nebula” IC 1805 and the “Soul Nebula” IC 1848 are relatively close on the sky, covering about 8 deg. Using the Canon telelens @ f ± 90 mm, which has a larger field-of-view than the William Optics APO refractor, I obtained an image in H_alpha of both nebulae, as shown below. Additional data on O[III] were also taken during the same night, but during the image processing it turned out, that the total exposure for O[III] was too short (2520 s), and the signal was too faint.

IC 1805 (Heart Nebula, right) and IC 1848 (Soul Nebula, left), 11 october 2024, Kempen, Canon EF 70-200 mm f/4 L USM telelens, f = ± 90 mm, H-alpha (4800 s),  ASI1600mm pro, gain 139, T = -10C, Image processing with PixInsight V1.8.9