Soul Nebula, Westerhout 5, IC 1848, IC 1871
A huge star factory in about 7500 light years distance in constellation Cassiopeia.
The object contains several star clusters as IC 1848 and others. Huge young stars blow bubbles into the surrounding gas cloud and make them glow in the light of hydrogen, oxygen and sulfur.
The stellar winds of the central stars compress the gas towards the edges of the bubbles so that new stars can be born in these regions. Several pretty dark globules in the foreground indicate that this process is still continuously forming new members of the star clusters. It has in deed been observed in this object that stars on the edges of the bubbles are younger than stars in the center.
A few crops from the image above:
Acquisition Details
Scope: Borg 90FL/500 with 1.08x Flattener
Filter: Baader Ultra-Narrowband 3.5/4nm Filters
Camera: ZWO ASI 2600MM Pro
Mount: Skywatcher HEQ5 Pro
Guiding: ZWO OAG
Guiding Camera: ZWO ASI 290MM
Guiding Software: PHD2
Acquisition Software: N.I.N.A.
H: 20x300s
O: 20x300s
S: 20x300s
Flats, Dark Flats, Bias, Darks
Camera settings: Gain 100, Offset 20
Bortle 4-5, no moon
Acquisition Date: November 08, 2021
Processing
Imaging & Stacking: PixInsight, WBPP and NSG
Denoise: Topaz AI Denoise