Two nebulae shine in the winter evening sky, the Heart and Soul Nebula. Both are framed by the two open star clusters h- and Chi-Persei (bottom right) and by two slightly greenish shimmering planetary nebulae (top left). Heart and Soul are nebulae with luminous, ionised hydrogen gas and embedded, darker dust lanes. The intense red of the nebulae and their appearance is caused by the radiation of small groups of stars near their centre. The stars in the neighbourhood are only a few million years old and are only at the beginning of their lives. Real youngsters compared to our almost 5 billion year old sun.
Heart and Soul Nebula – IC1805 and IC1848