Another visit to this iconic nebula lying in the constellation Cassiopeia at about 10'000 l-y away. I was able to collect 2 hours of data early August, but still not fully happy with the central parts of the Pac-Man as it looks fuzzy and "unresolved"due to the focal length I'm using... Sky quality wasn't so bad but high cloud layers moved around and affected bright stars in my image.
In such wide field, it's fun to spot some little objects next to NGC281, like :
[*]- Open cluster Kepler 1, at 8 o'clock from star Achird (+3.5 mag.), with an anchor-like shape.
[*]- Tiny planetary nebula Abell 2, looking like a soft blue ball. Have a look at 11 o'clock from Achird.
[*]- Part of LDN1299 where contrast is more easier to see. Go a few degrees on the right side from blue bright star in the upper right corner.
Did you spot them ? Go to rev. C for the solution ;-)
Hope you'll enjoy this image.
Clear skies,
Christophe
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