IC 1848 - Soul Nebula

From JPL: IC 1848, 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 I posted last month.

The cluster of stars formed about a million years ago from the material of the nebula. Winds and ultraviolet light from these young stars are excavating a cavity in the cloud. Parts of the cloud that are more dense than their surroundings are being eroded more slowly and form giant towers, or pillars of dust and gas, which all point toward the central star cluster.

Imagers Notes: This is another opportunity I took to process an image in its natural state. No color modifications or remapping of standard palette was done here. There’s so many Hubble palette images running around sometimes it just makes sense to stick to basics.