So who is feeling a little nostalgic for the 80’s.  Today’s image is the PacMan Nebula, which is a bright Emission Nebula near the Constellation Cassiopeia, and is part of the Perseus Spiral Arm of the Milky Way Galaxy.  The PacMan Nebula is known as NGC 281 (New General Catalogue) or Sh2-184 (Sharpless). An emission nebula is a nebula formed of ionized gases that emit light of various wavelengths. The most common source of ionization is high-energy ultraviolet photons emitted from a nearby hot star, and likely in this case, a high HII region (hydrogen gas), hence the deep red color in the photo, where star formation is likely taking place and young, massive stars are the source of the ionizing photons.  There is a young open cluster of stars (Index Catalogues, IC 1590) near the center of the nebula (near PacMan’s eye).  This cluster is made up of approximately 279 stars, and is estimated to be 3.5 million years old.  The “eye” of PacMan is called a Bok Globule, which are small, isolated dark nebulae containing dense cosmic dust, where star formation may take place.  Dark nebulae are so dense, that they obscure all visible wavelengths of light from being admitted.
These pictures were shot with the ZWO Dual Narrowband filter which is great for heavy light pollution areas (like mine), bright moonlight, and allows light transmission in two main frequency regions:
1.     Hydrogen Alpha (Ha) (red) at 656.3 nm with a bandwidth of 15nm
2.     Oxygen III (Oiii) (blue) at 500.7 nm with a bandwidth of 35nm

This image was processed in two color formats – One shot color (which is dominated by the red spectrum) and the Foraxx color scheme.  The Foraxx color scheme creates a blending of the Blue and Greem channels of the RGB spectrum based on a combination of the brightest and darkest areas of the two channels.  This often results in more “bronze-colour images, and was developed by “The Coldest Nights”, and I learned about it through many videos and the tools developed by Paulyman Astro. 

These images that make up this picture were collected on October 30, 2022. The moon was basically a waxing cresent near the first quarter (~30.13% light).

My setup:·       
Mount: EQ6R-Pro·       
Telescope: Williams Optics 81 mm Zenithstar doublet·       
ZWO-ASI224MC color camera for guiding with the Zenithstar guide·       
Hotech Corporation 2” Field Flattener·       
ZWO ASI2600MC Pro; Camera cooled to -10 deg C, with ZWO Duo-Band Narrowband Light Pollution Reduction Filter·       
Bortle-9 – South Los Angeles shot from my backyard·       
Integration Time: 6 Hours 15 Minutes; Lights (75 @ 300 seconds); Darks (30 @ 300 seconds); Flats (40) & Dark Flats (20) – Lights were captured on October 30th, nearly a half moon (about 30.13% moonlight)·       
Image Processing: Pixinsight – Using videos from multiple youtube teachers and website.  @ChaoticNebula, @Cosgrove’sCosmos, @ViewintoSpace, @EnteringintoSpace, @PaulymanAstro, @Lukomatico – Lots of great on-line teachers/examples.·       
Incorporated Russell Croman’s new BlurXTerminator – Amazing product  

Here is my simplified Pixinsight workflow that I have been tailoring over the last 4 months learning PixInsight and watching some really amazing people teach how the tools work.
1.      WBPP with 2x drizzle (Including Cosmetic Correction) – Includes first dynamic crop
2.      Perform a Linear Fit (with Green as a reference)
3.      Extract a Luminance Image
4.      Extract R, G, & B images
5.      DBE 1st Div  and 2nd Subtraction for both OCS and Luminance images
6.      OCS Image – Linear Processing
a.      Used Autocolor Script – Background Neutralization and Color Calibration
b.      SpectroPhotometric Color Calibration (SPCC)                                                        
i.      SCNR – Using Bill Blanshan’s Script (@AnotherAstroChannel)
c.       BlurXterminator – With star reduction of 0.2 and Halo -0.1                                                        
i.      Used PSF Image script to find the best PSF diameter (plugged in manually)
d.      StarXterminator – Generated Star Image and Upscreen Stars
e.      NoiseXterminator – 90%
7.      Foraxx Image Processinga.      For each of the R, G, & B images performed the following                                                        
i.      BlurXterminator – With star reduction of 0.2 and Halo -0.11.      Used PSF Image script to find the best PSF diameter (plugged in manually)                                                      
ii.      StarXterminator – Generated Star Image and Upscreen Stars                                                     
iii.      NoiseXterminator – 90%8.      Stretched with GHS Manual (I stretched) and GHS Script for OCS, and only GHS Manual for R,G, & B
a.      I then used Histogram_Transformation tool to get them all to the same background darkness
9.      Non-Linear Flow – Foraxx Imagea.      Used a range mask to isolate the nebula                                                        
i.      Clone stamp to clean-up background artifacts
b.      Curves transformation to clean-up/darken the background
c.       Inverted the mask to brighten the nebula (saturation and RGB increase)
d.      Used Red and Yellow masks to isolate and adjust colors
e.      Ran Foraxx Script to generate the Foraxx Image
f.        Added Stars in with upscreen formula
g.      Luminance Image created from Ha (Red image)                                                        
i.      Used Local Histogram Equalization to add contrast
1.      20, 80, and 256 sizes with low limits of application (varying) and 1.5 contrast                                                      
ii.      Additional Sharpening using Multiscale_Linear_Transformation (MLT)                                                     
iii.      Added stars into Luminance image
h.      Created Final Foraxx image with LRGB combination to apply luminance
i.        Ran final Noise Xterminator to clean-up
10.   Non-Linear Flow - OCS Image
a.      Used Red and Yellow masks to adjust color and saturation
b.      Used range mask from above to fix background
c.       Tried LRGB combination with Luminance image from above – Didn’t like results – Looked overprocessed – Tried adjusting lightness – Didn’t help
d.      Decided to proceed without using the luminance layer
e.      Exponential Transformation (w/ Mask) – Increase nebulosity brightness (just slightly)
f.        Local Histogram Equalization (w/ Mask) – Basically increasing contrast                                                        
i.      20, 80, and 256 sizes with low limits of application (varying) and 1.5 contrast
g.      Dark Structure Enhance Script
h.      Noise Xterminator 90%
11.   Stars (OCS)
a.      Stretched with Histogram_Transformation to a smaller number of star that were appealing to my eye
b.      Small Curves Transformation for Saturation
c.       Used a formula to put screened stars back (@PaulymanAstro)
12.   Final Color adjustments (very minor)
13.   Cropped pictures & Annotated with my signature
14.   Output multiple picture types