Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Cassiopeia (Cas)  ·  Contains:  IC 1590  ·  NGC 281  ·  Sh2-184
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NGC281 - Pacman Nebula, Thomas Richter
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NGC281 - Pacman Nebula

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
NGC281 - Pacman Nebula, Thomas Richter
Powered byPixInsight

NGC281 - Pacman Nebula

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Description

I had big problems with the sharpness but I tried getting the best result.

Rev. B: stretched histogram

Rev. C: added DSLR Ha data fom 2015 http://www.astrobin.com/216439/0/

Object description (wikipedia.org) :

NGC 281 is an H II region in the constellation of Cassiopeia and part of the Perseus Spiral Arm. It includes the open cluster IC 1590, the multiple star HD 5005, and several Bok globules. Colloquially, NGC 281 is also known as the Pacman Nebula for its resemblance to the video game character.

The nebula was discovered in August 1883 by E. E. Barnard, who described it as "a large faint nebula, very diffuse." The multiple star HD 5005, also called β 1, was discovered by S. W. Burnham. It consists of an 8th-magnitude primary with four companions at distances between 1.4 and 15.7 seconds of arc. There has been no appreciable change in this quintuple system since the first measurements were made in 1875.

The nebula is visible in amateur telescopes from dark sky locations. In his book Deep Sky Wonders, Walter Scott Houston describes the appearance of the nebula in small telescopes:

There was a faint glow in the immediate vicinity of the multiple star, with an occasional impression of a much larger nebulosity...Its surface brightness was much less than that of M33 in Triangulum or NGC 205, the distant companion of the Andromeda galaxy.

Comments

Revisions

  • NGC281 - Pacman Nebula, Thomas Richter
    Original
  • NGC281 - Pacman Nebula, Thomas Richter
    B
  • NGC281 - Pacman Nebula, Thomas Richter
    C
  • Final
    NGC281 - Pacman Nebula, Thomas Richter
    D

Sky plot

Sky plot

Histogram

NGC281 - Pacman Nebula, Thomas Richter

In these public groups

Astrofreunde-Franken

In these collections

Nebulea