Instrument

12.5" RCOS @  ~f/9 (2880 mm fl) 0.64 & 1.28 arcsec / pixel.  The Zoomify image scale is 1.28 to 3.07 arcsec / pixel.

Mount

Paramount ME

Camera

SBIG STL-11000 w/ internal filter wheel, AstroDon Gen I Filters

Acquisition Data

11/14/2010 to 2/2/2011 Chino Valley, AZ... with CCDAutoPilot3 & CCDSoft.  AOL guided

Exposure

Hα    600 min. (20 x 30 min. bin 1x1)

OIII  810 min. (27 x 30 min. bin 1x1)

RGB  135 min. ( 3 x 15 min. each, bin 2x2)

[R:G:B] + [Ha:OIII:OIII]

Two images were created... a standard RGB, and a synthetic color image with Ha:OIII:OIII mapped to R, G & B respectively. With PhotoShop, the synthetic image was added to the RGB, using the lighten blend mode, at 30%.

Click here for the color mapped narrow band images.

Click here for an Ha filtered b/w image.

Software

• CCDSoft, CCDStack, Photoshop CS3 & Noel Carboni's actions.

• eXcalibrator for (b-v), (v-r) color calibration, using 41 stars from the NOMAD1 database.

• PixFix32 (pre-beta) to repair column defects.

• CCDStack to calibrate, register, normalize, data reject, combine the sub exposures and RGB color combine.

• PhotoShop for color combine &  on-linear stretching.

North is to the bottom

This is a close up view of an interesting region in IC1848, the Soul Nebula. IC1848 (Sharpless 2-199, LBN 667) is locate in the constellation Cassiopeia, at a distance of about 7000 light-years. The central formation is reminiscent of Thor's Hammer in Bryce Canyon, Utah.