Westerhout 5 — The Soul Nebula by the cosmic arena André Vilhena

Camera by André Vilhena Source: Web-site: Date: 2023, November, 29 Author’s description: “Westerhout 5, also known as Soul Nebula, is an hydrogen region located in constellation Cassiopea, nearby other famous objects like the Heart Nebula and the Double Cluster. Its spans for about 100 light years and it is a nursery of stars, which have a few millions year old - young, compared with our 5 billion year Sun. These young stars are the large blue one and are clustered within the nebula (IC 1848, CR 34, 632 and 634). The highly energetic starts generate strong stellar wind, which push the nebula away, carving it out and creating the inward pillars we see in the photo which, due to its higher density, are also star forming regions. The Soul Nebula shape derives from the bridge it exists between the two “bubbles“ of gas. It resemblance to a fetus is the reason for also being called Embryo Nebula. Following several weeks of bad weather, finally sky cleared for some nights which allowed me to capture 20 hours of narrowband (NB) imagery using hydrogen, oxygen and sulphur filters, used to create a false colour SHO image. This step is one of my headaches in processing NB as it entails the most artistic aspect of astrophotography, which does not bode well a mathematical mindset... Still, I think a pleasent colour pallet was achieved. Hope you enjoy! This photo was taken at Barcarena, Portugal (Bortle 😎 in November 2023, in a total of almost 26 hours of NB plus 1.5 hours for RGB stars. Further details here: “ Music by Terrallende @Terrallende Track «Al otro lado del cielo» Bandcamp: NEANE Records: Video editing by pictuREflection @pictuREflection #Sky #Westerhout5 #astrophotography #AndréVilhena #Terrallende #TheSoulNebula #SoulNebula #music #Ambient #November #Nebula #November2023