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Aquistion details
CAMERA NarrowBand: FLI ML8300 @ -45C RBI 2s RGB: Canon 40D Baader mod @ISO1600	LENS/OTA NB: William Optics 66 Zenithstar @F6.1 RGB: Canon 200mm @F4	FLATNER/REDUCER TSFlat 2
MOUNT ASA DDM60 Pro	IMAGE Ha: 19x30min (b1x1) = 9hr 30min SII: 12x30min (b1x1) + 14x30min (b2x2) = 13hr OIII: 73x5min (b3x3) = 6hr 5min RGB: 130x3min = 6hr 30min	IMAGE SCALE 2.76 arcsec/pixel (full size)
FIELD OF VIEW 02 31' 20" x 01 43' 50"	FILTER FLI Filter Wheel CW2-7 Ha: Baader Ha 7nm SII: Baader SII 8nm OIII: Astrodon OIII 3nm RGB: Astronomik CLS clip in (RGB DSLR)	GUIDING Autoguiding with MaximDL OAG Starlight Xpress Lodestar
DATE Feb 5 - Mar 30, 2011	LOCATION Älta, Sweden

On mouseover:         Image details             Hubble             Narrow band colour             HaRGB             H-alpha        

The Soul Nebula (Sharpless 2-199, LBN 667) is an emission nebula in Cassiopeia. Several small open clusters are embedded in the nebula: CR 34, 632, and 634 (in the head) and IC1848 (in the body). The object is more commonly called by the cluster designation IC1848.

This complex is the eastern neighbour of IC1805 (Heart Nebula) and the two are often mentioned together as the "Heart and Soul".

The above text is taken from Wikipedia.

By "mouse over" on the blue text just below the image you can see:

• Image details: Equipment used, number of subs etc.
• Hubble: Red = SII, Green = Ha, Blue = OIII, Lum = 80%Ha + 10%OIII + 10%SII
• Narrow band color: Red = 80%Ha + 20%SII, Green = OIII, Blue = 85%OIII + 15%Ha, Lum = 80%Ha + 10%OIII + 10%SII
• HaRGB: Red = 20%R(DSLR) + 80%Ha, Green = G(DSLR), Blue = 85%B(DSLR) + 15%Ha, Lum = 80%Ha + 10%G(DSLR) + 10%B(DSLR)
• Ha: just Ha.

Click on the image name in the list to load a 50% image.

The colour version have been obtained by enlargement of the DSLR RGB image and aligning it to the Ha image, which also involves a crop of the RGB as well as a split into R, G and B channels.

For the Hubble and the Narrow Band Colour image I have used JP Metsavainio's Tone Mapping technique - see his blog for details, in order to make maximum use of the weak OIII and SII data.

This was my first real narrow band image (also OIII and SII) and I learned that the SII and OIII data is really weak. Thus it is best to image SII and OIII binned 3x3 (note the long integration times I had for SII). I also noticed that I need to go longer than 5min for the OIII subs even thou I binned them 3x3. Ten or even fifteen min would give more optimal SNR. Just to give an example of how weak the OIII and SII data is (compared to the Ha) I have included below each data set calibrated, integrated and stretched to have the histogram peak at roughly the same value.

           

Ha                                                                        OIII                                                                        SII 

The following software has been used. MaximDL (image acquisition and guiding), CCDStack (calibration and RGB scaling, PixInsight (cropping, background correction, colour corrections) and Photoshop CS5 (all the rest, incl Noel Carbonis Astronomy Tools), and finally JP Metsavainio's Tone Mapping technique.

This image was processed in March 2011