Heart and Soul in Cassiopeia

This time I used two old data sets of IC 1805 and IC 1848, one from when the camera has not been modified yet and one from last summer, both under fair skies.

(1) 41×2 min, ISO 1600, Canon EF 200mm f2.8L II USM at F/3.5, Canon 1100D unmod, EQ3 (see article)
(2) 8×3 min, ISO 1600, Canon EF 200mm f2.8L II USM at F/4, Canon 1100D mod, HEQ5 (see article)

I reduced the stars with my own program.

Galaxies Maffei 1 and Maffei 2 are also in the frame, the yellow patches on the bottom. Both galaxies are in the zone of avoidance, ie in the plane of the Milky Way where the dust adds up to be almost opaque. Wiki says 99.5% of the light of Maffei 2 is obscured. In a crop below I emphasize these objects with infrared data from WISE. The dust is mostly transparent at infrared wavelengths.

(tovább…)