The Pac-Man Nebula (NGC281) (blastrophoto)

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

The Pac-Man Nebula (NGC281), blastrophoto

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The Pac-Man Nebula (NGC281)

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The Pac-Man Nebula (NGC281)

My second completed project of 2022! This one started at the very beginning of this year. I can finally knock it off my list of “to-do” projects. Ever since getting my mono cameras I’ve wanted to re capture this at a higher resolution with greater detail and greater integration times. Whenever I first captured “Space Pac-Man” I went searching online for the best photo I could find of it. In the photo I found, which was awarded an APOD, I saw large pillars in the far left region of the gaseous complex. In my previous attempts I hadn’t or had barely captured these pillars at all. So the goal was to take deep enough exposures and a lot of them to capture these faint features. I used a combination of 600s and 1200s subs in Hydrogen Alpha with my 12nm Astronomik filter to get this. Total integration time for this project was 20 hours plus 4 hours of post processing. All captured from my suburban backyard. Pac-Man is nice and high in the sky right now as the sun sets. This is crucial for me because my house blocks the north/north-eastern sky.

What I discovered capturing 1200s subs for the first time…. Was it necessary? No. Was it interesting? Yes. Seeing a two hour stack (6 subs) compared to a two hour stack of 600s subs there was very little difference. Noise was a little better with 1200s subs and there was a very minor boost in contrast. But not enough of a reason to continue going that long and risk losing so much time due to a gust of wind.

AstroBros
NOVAC
FriendlyCosmos

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Status	Basic success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	5411624
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
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The Pac-Man Nebula (NGC281)

The Pac-Man Nebula (NGC281)

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The Pac-Man Nebula (NGC281)

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