Small: The Soul Nebula with Title box

watermarks will be removed

Mounted size 303mm x 254mm

The Soul Nebula 

The Soul Nebula is an open cluster of stars surrounded by a cloud of dust and gas over 150 light-years across and located about 6,500 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cassiopeia, near The Heart Nebula known collectively as The Heart and Soul Nebulae. The cluster of stars, IC 1848 to give it its scientific name, formed about a million years ago from material of the nebula. Winds and ultraviolet light from these young stars are excavating a cavity in the cloud. The pillars inside the Soul Nebula are each about 10 light-years tall and have stars forming at their tips.

This image was photographed over a period 14 months through narrowband filters Hydrogen alpha (Ha), Oxygen 3 (0iii), and Sulphur 2 (Sii),totalling over 90 hours of exposure time. The final image incorporated technics used in the "Hubble Palette".

The Hubble Palette is a method used in astrophotography to enhance images of nebulae by assigning specific colours to different wavelengths of light, producing stunning and visually striking images. It utilises narrowband filters to capture emissions from ionised elements such as sulfur (SII), hydrogen (Hα), and oxygen (OIII). In the palette, these emissions are mapped to red, green, and blue respectively, creating vibrant and detailed images commonly used by the Hubble Space Telescope.