NGC 281, Daniele Malleo

NGC 281

NGC 281, Daniele Malleo

NGC 281

Equipment

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Acquisition details

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Description

NGC 281 is a nebula that lies ten thousand light years away. It is sometimes called "pacman nebula", but it doesn't look like pacman at all when framed as I did above.

It features large lanes and dense knots of dust and gas in which stars may still be forming. The open cluster of stars IC 1590 visible around the center has formed only in the last few million years. The lanes of dust visible left of center are likely homes of future star formation.

The localized "dark spots" visible against the bright nebula. are known as Bok globules.

Exposures:

- 7 x 30m subs in Ha (5nm)

Total exposure time: 3.5 hours

Acquired from my backyard on Dec 20, 2013

I don't usually stack such a small number of subs, but I wanted to test a new reducer and motorized focuser before storing the telescope away for the holidays.

Equipment:

Main Camera: QSI 583 WSG

Guide Camera: SXV Lodestar (on OAG)

Mount: Astro-Physics Mach 1

Scope: Celestron Edge HD 8" with 0.7x reducer (FL: ~1480mm)

Acquired, Registed, Calibrated and Stacked in MaximDL v5

Post Processed with PixInsight 1.8

Comments

Histogram

NGC 281, Daniele Malleo