The Heart Nebula (at right, aka IC 1805) and the Soul Nebula (at left, aka IC 1848, ad also the Foetus Nebula), in Cassiopeia. Just right of upper centre is the open star cluster NGC 1027. The star cluster in the middle of the Heart Nebula is called Melotte 15. The patch of nebulosity at upper right detached from the rest is NGC 896. The field is filled with numerous other clusters and dark nebulas from lesser known catalogs. The field lies right on the Galactic Equator, with most objects here located in the Perseus spiral arm, the next one out from ours, some 6000 to 7500 light years away. This is a 3-segment mosaic, taken Nov 15 and 16, 2014 from New Mexico. Each segment is a stack of 12 x 6 minute exposures with the filter-modified Canon 5D MkII camera at ISO 800, through the TMB 92mm apo refractor at f/4.4 using the Borg 0.85x field flattener/reducer. Stitched in Photoshop.
The Heart Nebula (aka IC 1805) at right, and the Soul Nebula (aka IC 1848) at left, in Cassiopeia. The round nebula at top right is NGC 896. The star cluster at right embedded in the Heart Nebula is NGC 1027. Shot from home in Alberta on November 21, 2019. This is a stack of 16 images, half of the set shot through a light pollution reduction filter to suppress sky background and enhance the colours of the nebulas, particularly in the red end of the spectrum from H-alpha emission. The eight filtered shots are all 8-minute exposures with the Canon EOS Ra mirrorless camera at ISO 1600, and through the Borg 77mm f/4 astrographic refractor at f/4 with an IDAS LPSv3 filter in place. The 8 unfiltered shots are all 8-minute exposures as well but at ISO 800 (with no filter the images require less exposure) and with the same camera and scope but without the IDAS filter for a set of “natural light” images. Blending the two versions provides the benefit of the enhanced nebulosity of the filter but the better colour balance of the unfiltered shots. The EOS Ra camera features a factory-modified IR block filter that transmits a higher level of the red H-alpha visible light, making such a photo possible. The additional IDAS filter does bring out the fainter parts of the nebulas but tends to make the nebulas quite “in-your-face” red, rather than present a more balanced look with magenta and blues adding to the colour. This was shot from a fairly dark rural site, so the IDAS filter wasn’t essential for urban sky glow suppression but for nebula enhancement. All images aligned and stacked in Photoshop 2020. We don’t need no Deep Sky Stacker.
This is a wide field image of the region of Perseus and Cassiopeia containing the bright Double Cluster at bottom left, and the large emission nebulas known as the Heart and Soul Nebulas at top. The Heart Nebula at right is IC 1805; the Soul Nebula (aka Embryo Nebula) at top left is IC 1848. The bright detached nebula at right is NGC 896. Also in the image to the right of the Double Cluster is the large scattered star cluster, Stock 2, the Muscle Man Cluster, barely standing out from the Milky Way background here. The compact star cluster above the Double Cluster is NGC 957. Despite the poor sky conditions, the small, reddened Local Group galaxies, Maffei 1 and 2 are visible above centre amid the dark lanes of interstellar dust. This is a stack of 9 x 8-minute exposures at ISO 1600 with the Canon EOS Ra through the William Optics RedCat 51mm f/4.9 astrograph. This was on the Sky-Watcher EQM-35 mount as a test of the combination, and guided with the ZWO ASIAir and ZWO guidescope, which worked fine until the cold killed the iPad (despite it being plugged in). Placing the iPad inside worked for a while but the weak WiFi from the ASIAir made the iPad lose the connection and revert to my home WiFi, again stopping the guiding. However, the small mount guided quite well when the autoguider worked! Clouds were also coming and going and prevented more images and any taking through a nebula filter — these are all unfiltered. Some light cloud in some frames add the star glows, and so I added a mild Orton Effect with Luminar 4 to purposely add a further soft glow “look” to the image, and which also punches up the nebulosity. North is to the top right here, in this image framed at an angle from the usual N-S, E-W orientation to take in the nebulas and clusters. The graduated scale on the RedCat’s camera angle adjuster helped in the framing. Taken from home under duress (equipment and sky issues!) October 12, 2020. Indeed, I was surprised to get even these frames to make a passable image.
