NGC 281 the Pacman Nebula in Cassiopeia (Mark Wetzel)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Cassiopeia (Cas) · Contains: IC 1590 · NGC 281

NGC 281 the Pacman Nebula in Cassiopeia, Mark Wetzel

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NGC 281 the Pacman Nebula in Cassiopeia

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NGC 281 the Pacman Nebula in Cassiopeia

The large emission nebula, NGC 281 is a classic narrowband imaging target. The Pacman Nebula was captured with narrowband filters, Hydrogen-alpha (Ha), Oxygen-III (OIII) and Sulfur-II (SII). I captured large numbers of subframes for each channel over 5 nights. This is a false color image uses the classic Hubble pallet, mapping SII to Red, Ha to Green and OIII to Blue channels.

NGC 281 is a large emission nebula in the constellation Cassiopeia. Astronomers, possessing a vivid imagination, named it after the 1970’s Pacman video game. This nebula has strong signals in Ha, OIII and SII. NGC 281 is about 41.5 light years across, and it is about 10,000 light years from Earth (SkySafari Pro). There are striking dust lanes, with Pacman’s mouth being most prominent. There are also a few Bok Globules where new stars may be forming. There is an open star cluster in the center, IC 1590. The bright star in the center, HD 5005, is actually member of a stable quintuple system.

In previous image processing sessions, I could not get the colors right using the Hubble Pallet. A YouTube video on the channel “Entering into Space” described how to use the ColorMask script and the CurvesTransformation tool in PixInsight to change the color balance and saturation in different regions of the nebula. I was able to bring out the blues to make a rather pleasing image.

ZWO ASI1600MM/QHY163M
Narrowband imaging
Images from the EdgeHD Series
PixInsight Addicts
Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope (SCT) Imagers

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Status	Basic success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	4140299
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
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NGC 281 the Pacman Nebula in Cassiopeia

NGC 281 the Pacman Nebula in Cassiopeia

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NGC 281 the Pacman Nebula in Cassiopeia

NGC 281 the Pacman Nebula in Cassiopeia

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