The Pacman Nebula (NGC 281)

Image Description and Details :

The Pacman Nebula (NGC 281) is a cosmic cloud of space gas rich in Hydrogen Alpha (red/orange) and Oxygen (blue) located in the constellation Cassiopeia. It gets its name from the classic video game character it resembles. NGC 281 is a rather diffuse red-glowing emission nebula. It includes a small, yet noticeable open star cluster (IC 1590) and some really dynamic dust lanes. The prominent lane of dark dust cutting into this glowing nebula creates the “mouth” of this nebulas shape.

The Pacman Nebula contains Bok globules, which are small and isolated dark nebulae containing dense amounts of dust and gas. These collections of cosmic gas and dust are often followed by the formation of new stars.

Captured with 14.5 hours of narrowband data under a near full moon and Bortle Class 4 skies near downtown Flagstaff, Arizona.

OTA: William Optics GT81 using 0.8x Flat6A-81 reducer
Mount: Celestron CGX-L
Camera: ZWO ASI294MM Pro
Gain: 100

Filters:
Night 1
Chroma 3nm Oiii 900s x 32 = 8hrs

Night 2
Chroma 5nm Ha 900s x 26 = 6.5hrs

Cooling Temperature: -10 Celsius
Auto-guiding: ZWO ASI174MM Mini and ZWO M48 OAG
Control: ZWO ASIAIR Pro
Calibrated in Astro Pixel Processor⁣ with darks and flats
Processed in Pixinsight and Lightroom

Copyright: Drew Evans