The Soul Nebula (IC 1848) is an emission nebula located in the constellation Cassiopeia.
It forms a famous pair known as the Heart & Soul with the neighbouring Heart Nebula (IC 1805).
The Heart & Soul Nebulae complex at just over 6,000 light-yars away, spans an area about 300 light years across and is a vast star-forming region illuminated by the light of the young stars surrounded by star-forming clouds of dust and gas.
The stars in the region are less than a few million years old and are only beginning their life. For comparison, our Sun has been around for almost 5 billion years.
The complete nebulae is shown as follows:
Equipment:
- Vixen AX103S 103mm f/8.0 ED Apochromatic Refractor telescope.
- Avalon Linear Fast Reverse Mount.
- QSI 683 CCD camera, Kodak KAF-8300 8.3 mega-pixel sensor cooled to -25 °C.
- Astronomik L-RGB, Astrodon 5nm Ha and Astrodon 3nm Oiii filters.
Image exposure (15+ hours in total):
- 34 x 20min Ha.
- 12 x 20min Oiii.
