Pacman Nebula in LRGB and Narrowband

Image Title: NGC281 Pacman Nebula

Copyright: Copyright:L Oleg Ignat

Date image was taken: August 01, 2025

Location: Utah Desert Remote Observatories - near Enterprise, Utah, USA

Data Acquisition Method: Remote Observatory (Commercial)

Description and Details: Pacman Nebula (NGC281) is an emission nebula in the northern constellation of Cassiopeia and is an astrophotography treat in the summer skies. It has an open star cluster (IC1590), dark lanes, bok globules, and even features similar to the “Pillars of Creation” formed by stellar winds and radiation. As such, it is quite common to focus on the target alone and ignore the surrounding area.

I decided to go wide. This image peers deep through the dust clouds to reveal Hydrogen and Oxygen structures lurking far beyond the core of the nebula. I was surprised how expansive the gas clouds are.

There are a myriad of tiny galaxies scattered across the dust.

This is a composite image of LRGB data as seen by the naked eye with 3 narrowband layers on top mapped to colors H = Red, O = Blue and S = Yellow.

This image contains 19 hours of narrowband data and 27 hours of LRGB data. Each narrowband sub-exposure is 10 minutes long, each broadband is 5 minutes.

William Optics Pleiades 111, ZWO ASI2600MM Pro, Paramount MX6, Antlia 3nm HSO and Astronomik LRGB filters.

Name: Oleg Ignat

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