This is the pair of emission nebulas in Cassiopeia known as the Heart (upper right) and Soul (lower left) Nebulas, here recorded in monochrome shot through a deep-red filter to isolate the Hydrogen-alpha wavelength to allow shooting of the faint nebulas on a bright moonlit night. The Soul, aka Embryo, Nehula is officially IC 1848, while the Heart Nebula is IC 1805. The brightest portion at upper right is NGC 896 and IC 1795. The Moon was a bright waxing gibbous this night, setting toward the end of the 4 hours of shooting when frames did get much darker. This is a stack of 18 x 16-minute exposures at ISO 3200 through an Astronomik 12nm H-alpha clip-in filter inserted into the Canon EOS Ra camera, and shooting through the SharpStar 76mm apo refractor at f/4.4 with its field flattener reducer. Auto-guided with the MGEN3 guider and dithered from frame to frame to average out the thermal noise hot pixels which were abundant with such long exposures at a high ISO, despite this being a cool night. No LENR or darks applied. Nebulosity brought out via luminosity masks created with Lumenzia. Some colour grading applied to give the image a slight colour tone. High Pass Sharpen and TKActions Soft Pop action applied to the nebulas for added edge contrast.
The Heart Nebula (IC 1805) in Cassiopeia with the star clusters Melotte 15 (at centre) and NGC 1027 (at left), with the nebula NGC 896 at upper right. I shot this October 6, 2016 from home with an Explore Scientific FCD102 apo refractor at f/7. This is a stack of 8 x 4.5-minute exposures at ISO 1600 with the filter-modified Canon 5D MkII. Stellar diffraction spikes added with Astronomy Tools Photoshop actions.
The Horsehead Nebula, B33, below the Belt of Orion and the star Alnitak, along with the bright Flame Nebula, NGC 2024, to the left of Alnitak. Many other bright reflection nebulas populate the field, such as NGC 2023 just left of the Horsehead itself. The quintuple star system Sigma Orionis is right of the Horsehead. The dark Horsehead is set against the bright streak of the emission nebula IC 434. This is a stack of 10 x 4 minute exposures with the Celestron Rowe-Ackerman Schmidt Astrograph, a 620mm focal length f/2.2 astrograph in hand for review, and using the filter-modified Canon 5D MkII at ISO 400. Autoguided on the Mach 1 mount. Taken from New Mexico, Nov 28, 2014.
