This image is taken in the constellation of Perseus at a declination of +32 degrees.

Just left of center is the star cluster IC 348 and associated reflection nebula vdB 19, located 1100 light years away. The cluster contains about 500 stars, with 15 of these being larger than our sun.  Most of these cannot be seen in this image because of the intervening dust.  I like the blue, purple, magenta, and orange light shading throughout the region, which is about 7 light years wide. Just above this star forming region in the image is the bright blue 3.8 magnitude star Omicron Persei.

Just to the right of IC 348 is the small white reflection nebula DG 21.  Like IC 348, this small region contains many YSOs (Young Star Objects).

3 lovely Barnard dark nebula frame IC 348 and DG 21.  Seen at the right center of the image is the most dramatic of these three dark nebula, Barnard 3. The bottom half of the image is Barnard 4, which is much lighter than Barnard 3 but still powerful enough to block out most of the stars behind it.  Barnard 5 is in the upper left corner.

Astronomer Edward Emerson (E.E.) Barnard was one of the greatest astronomers of the 19th century. He was known as "The Man Who Never Slept."  One of his greatest accomplishments is his atlas of 349 dark nebulae known as the Barnard Catalogue of Dark Markings in the Sky. Due to various reasons, the 349 objects have numbers ranging from 1 to 379, with some numbers unassigned.  These nebulae were once thought to be holes in the Milky Way. After further study, they were discovered not to be holes but interstellar dust clouds which block the background Milky Way stars from our view.

Barnard died in 1923 at the age of 65. Due to his meticulous work on the Atlas, it was not completed while he was still alive. It was published after his death, in 1927, with the last aspects of publishing the Atlas being handled by his niece Mary Calvert.  The 349 dark nebulae vary tremendously in their density, size and beauty.