We present observations of 10.6 square degrees of the Perseus molecular cloud at 24 , 70 , and 160 \mu m with the Spitzer Space Telescope Multiband Imaging Photometer for Spitzer ( MIPS ) .
The image mosaics show prominent , complex extended emission dominated by illuminating B stars on the East side of the cloud , and by cold filaments of 160 \mu m emission on the West side .

Of 3950 point sources identified at 24 \mu m , 1141 have 2MASS counterparts .
A quarter of these populate regions of the K _ { s } vs . K _ { s } - [ 24 ] diagram that are distinct from stellar photospheres and background galaxies , and thus are likely to be cloud members with infrared excess .
Nearly half ( 46 % ) of these 24 \mu m excess sources are distributed outside the IC 348 and NGC 1333 clusters .
NGC 1333 shows the highest fraction of stars with flat or rising spectral energy distributions ( 28 % ) , while Class II SEDs are most common in IC 348 .
These results are consistent with previous relative age determinations for the two clusters .
A significant number of IRAS PSC objects are not recovered by Spitzer /MIPS , most often because the IRAS objects were confused by bright nebulosity .
There is no evidence for 24 \mu m source variability to 10 % between the \sim 3-6 hours of our two observation epochs .

The intercluster region contains several tightly clumped ( r \sim 0.1 pc ) young stellar aggregates whose members exhibit a wide variety of infrared spectral energy distributions characteristic of different circumstellar environments .
One possible explanation is a significant age spread among the aggregate members , such that some have had time to evolve more than others .
Alternatively , if the aggregate members all formed at roughly the same time , then remarkably rapid circumstellar evolution would be required to account for the association of Class I and Class III sources at ages \lesssim 1 Myr .

We highlight important results for the HH 211 flow , where the bowshocks are detected at both 24 and 70 \mu m ; and for the debris disk candidate BD +31 \arcdeg 643 , where the MIPS data shows the linear nebulosity to be an unrelated interstellar feature .
Our data , mosaics , and catalogs are available at the Spitzer Science Archive for use by interested members of the community .