NGC 281: Pacman Nebula (ivnlpz)

NGC 281: Pacman Nebula

The Pacman Nebula (NGC 281) is a large emission nebula appearing near the orange giant Schedar in the constellation Cassiopeia. The nebula lies approximately 9,200 light years away and occupies 35 arcminutes of the apparent sky. It was named the Pacman Nebula for its resemblance to Pac-Man, the character in the popular 1980s maze video game. In optical images, a dark dust lane forms the Pac-Man’s mouth.

Preprocessing:
- WBPP for calibration and cosmetization
- SubframeSelector using new weight formula to prioritize SNRWeight and with weight > 70
- StarAlignment
- LocalNormalization
- ImageIntegration

Processing filters images:
- MureDenoise
- DynamicCrop
- DBE
- EZ decon on Ha using a processed star mask from StarXterminator
- LinearFit Oiii and Sii using Ha as the reference image
- EZ soft stretch

Nebula:
- PixelMath to create a SHO image and a DreamsPlease image
- Create new image with SHO*0.4 + Dreams*0.6
- LRGBCombination using Ha as the luminance image
- StarXterminator to remove stars
- CurvesTransformation
- ACDNR using mask
- LocalHistogramEqualization using RangeSelection masks
- DarkStructureEnhance
- Final Curves
- Export to tiff and run TopazDenoise

RGB_stars:
- Remove stretch on Ha and Oiii
- PixelMath to create RGB stars image
- PCC
- ScreenTransferFunction and HistrogramTransformation to stretch image
- CurvesTransformation
- SCNR

star_mask:
- StarXterminator on Nebula
- Extract luminance as mask is currently RGB
- HistogramTransformation to high clip and remove background
- MultiscaleLinearTransform
- MorphologicalTransformation

Final image:
- Apply star_mask to Nebula
- PixelMath to add RGB_stars to Nebula

Narrowband imaging
ZWO ASI1600MM/QHY163M
Suburban Astrophotography
/r/astrophotography
PixInsight Addicts
N.I.N.A. Users
Images from the EdgeHD Series
Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope (SCT) Imagers
Texas Astronomy

	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	5277329
PixInsight job	PBJ7EGMKZP254Q3MXKKZ3H60BEBCMREZ
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	00h52m33s.682
RA (top/left)	00h50m55s.912
RA (top/right)	00h51m36s.521
RA (bottom/right)	00h54m10s.417
RA (bottom/left)	00h53m31s.613

Dec (center)	+56°33′25″.58
Dec (top/left)	+56°45′17″.77
Dec (top/right)	+56°17′19″.45
Dec (bottom/right)	+56°21′28″.76
Dec (bottom/left)	+56°49′29″.22

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