NGC 281 - The Pacman Nebula in a SHO/RGB Blend (Cosgrove's Cosmos (Patrick Cosgrove))

NGC 281 - The Pacman Nebula in a SHO/RGB Blend

NGC 281 - The Pacman Nebula. Also known as IC 11 and Sh2-184. This is a bright emission nebula located 9500 light years away in the constellation of Cassiopeia and is part of the Perseus arm of our own Milky Way galaxy.

I can only see this object for about 3 hours as it rises from and sets back into the tree line. This image was taken over the span of two evenings while we have had amazingly clear and warm November days this week. I shot with my AP 130mm F/8.35 Starfire rig running a mono camera. Total integration was about 6 hours. Images were captured in Ha, OIII,SII and also with the RGB filters. This final image was a blend of 80% narrowband data and 20% RGB data.

Imaging Details can be see below:

23 x 500 seconds, bin 1x1 @ -15C, unity gain, ZWO Gen II Ha Filter

22 x 500 seconds, bin 1x1 @ -15C, unity gain, ZWO Gen II O3 Filter

22 x 500 seconds, bin 1x1 @ -15C,unity gain, ZWO Gen II S2 Filter

10 x 60 seconds, bin 1x1 @ -15C,unity gain, ZWO Gen II R Filter

10 x 60 seconds, bin 1x1 @ -15C,unity gain, ZWO Gen II G Filter

10 x 60 seconds, bin 1x1 @ -15C,unity gain, ZWO Gen II G Filter

45 Bias exposures

25 Dark exposures

45 Ha Flats

45 O3 Flats

45 S2 Flats

45 R flats

45 B flats

45 B flats

Capture Hardware:

Scope: Astrophysics 130mm Starfire F/8.35 APO refractor

Guide Scope: Televue 76mm Doublet

Camera: ZWO ASI1600mm-pro with ZWO Filter wheel with ZWO filter set

Guide Camera: ZWO ASI290Mini

Focus Motor: Pegasus Astro Focus Cube 2

Camera Rotator: Pegasus Astro Falcon

Mount: Ioptron CEM60

Polar Alignment: Polemaster camera

Capture Software: PHD2 Guider, Sequence Generator Pro controller

Image Processing: Pixinsight, Photoshop - assisted by Coffee, extensive processing indecision and second guessing, editor regret and much swearing…..

Original
B
Final
C

B

Description: Just a test - the image as seen on Astrobin seems darker and lower in contrast than the jpeg I uploaded. So I am sending up a new version with more contrast and saturation to compare.

Uploaded: ...

C

Description: fixed profile issue in uploaded jpeg that was making the image darker than it should be...

Uploaded: ...

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	4000009
PixInsight job	36W7U5J4KE4BW53949F3XNROLL3NWZOO
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

RA (center)	00h52m37s.773
RA (top/left)	00h56m09s.213
RA (top/right)	00h53m08s.456
RA (bottom/right)	00h49m03s.759
RA (bottom/left)	00h52m08s.188

Dec (center)	+56°41′54″.70
Dec (top/left)	+56°28′08″.14
Dec (top/right)	+57°13′50″.66
Dec (bottom/right)	+56°55′17″.54
Dec (bottom/left)	+56°10′01″.65

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