This nebula has many numbers and names - Westerhout 5, Sharpless 2-199, LBN 667, IC 1848, Soul Nebula or Embryo Nebula. It is a big object that gives spectacular show of light, colors and shapes, no matter what scope and camera are used. The emissions in various wavelengths combined with dark nebulae, pillars and bubbles of creation are almost hypnotizing at least for me
The pillars which are so many here and are very beautiful, but the small bubbles floating in the blue light are like gems. The processing is pretty conservative – no hard push and no noise reduction in order to preserve the clarity and the faint details which are enormous for the modest 80mm . I’m sure that will give more play with the data as it is my biggest project so far and the object is fruitful for experiments. Definitely it is one of the pictures I like most so far and hope that you will enjoy it too.
As usual the target triggers a quest to find more info about the area. The Soul Nebula is part of bigger complex formed with its famous neighbor – the Heart Nebula. They are made for same interstellar cloud with size of around 580 l.y. laying at 7500 l.y. from Earth in the Perseus spiral arm of our Milky Way. The matter in Soul nebula is about 100 l.y. across is being blown away from the young star clusters in it - the IC 1848/CR34 in the blue light in left part of the image and CR 632 and 634 right blue part. These clusters are made for very young stars, just few million years and began their lives with the last ancestors of Homo sapiens like Homo Habilis and Homo Erectus. The star formation is still in progress in the pillar structures which are up to 10 l.y. long, as well as in the bigger bubbles / globules. However there are many smaller bubbles called globulettes. Some of them will disappear because of photoevaporation – which is process of ionization and blowing caused by the ultraviolet radiation of the bight stars. Others are big enough to withstand these stellar winds, but still not big enough to give a life to a star – they are areas where brown dwarfs and big planetary objects like Jupiter are in process of forming. It is very interesting sky area with studies in different wave lengths still in progress, so more curious facts and news are just around the corner…
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