I posted a couple of images of the Soul Nebula earlier (NOTE: These posts were not copied to this blog). Here is a fully reprocessed image, with an astrometry image based on the Hydrogen Alpha channel (a monochrome image). The astrometry image shows a number of other objects associated with the nebula. The Soul is an emission nebula in a huge star-forming region. The stellar winds from young stars energize the nebula and make it glow. In the closeup image, (the heart of the Soul :) you can see dark nodules silhouetted against the nebula; these are Bok Globules and new stars are forming within them. Note also close to the darkest and most prominent globule, trunk-like and pillar-like structures. These are also the birth places of stars. The red coloring of the nebula comes from hydrogen ionized by the young, blue-white stars in the nebula. The faint bluish coloring comes from reflected light.
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