Star Nursery around IC348 and NGC1333

You are looking at a star nursery. The Perseus molecular cloud with lots of galactic cirrus / dark nebulae that through gravity alone compacts into new stars. Both reflection nebulae IC348 and NGC1333 in the northern constellation Perseus are around 1000 light years away. Near IC348 in between both nebulae you may notice the reddish Wreath Nebula, Barnhard 3. The red color results from an emission nebula of Hii gas ionised by the bright star HD 278942.