Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Cassiopeia (Cas)  ·  Contains:  HD17086  ·  HD17356  ·  HD17505  ·  HD17520  ·  HD17688  ·  HD17911  ·  HD17971  ·  HD18152  ·  HD18326  ·  HD18352  ·  HD18766  ·  HD237000  ·  HD237007  ·  HD237011  ·  HD237015  ·  HD237016  ·  HD237018  ·  HD237019  ·  HD237023  ·  HD237034  ·  HD237036  ·  IC 1848  ·  IC 1871  ·  LBN 667  ·  LBN 669  ·  LBN 670  ·  LBN 672  ·  LBN 673  ·  LBN 675  ·  LDN  ·  And 3 more.
Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
Soul Nebula (IC 1848), Jeff Ridder
Powered byPixInsight

Soul Nebula (IC 1848)

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
Soul Nebula (IC 1848), Jeff Ridder
Powered byPixInsight

Soul Nebula (IC 1848)

Equipment

Loading...

Acquisition details

Loading...

Description

The Soul Nebula is more than a massive space baby, it is also an emission nebula located in Cassiopeia. The star cluster within is IC 1848 and is about 6500 light years away. The Soul is a massive star-forming region with large cavities that were carved out by radiation and winds from the region's most massive stars. According to the theory of triggered star formation, the carving out of these cavities pushes gas together, causing it to ignite into successive generations of new stars. Infrared photos from the Spitzer Space Telescope show that the ages of the stars become progressively and systematically younger with distance from the center of the cavities. Wow! Cool stuff!

This image contains around 16 hours of narrowband exposure time to capture the details of the emission nebula. I added another half-hour of wideband exposures to capture the natural color of the stars -- doesn't need much due to the high signal-to-noise ratio of the stars.

Comments

Sky plot

Sky plot

Histogram

Soul Nebula (IC 1848), Jeff Ridder