The Pacman Nebula (NGC 281) is a bright emission nebula in the constellation Cassiopeia. It is about 9500 light-years away. The core of the nebula has been hollowed out by intense wind and radiation from young energetic stars. In fact, the sculpted columns in this view align back to the star cluster IC 1590 located just outside the top of the image. Also visible are dark areas of dense dust and gas called Bok globules. These opaque highly concentrated knots have the potential to create new stars in their cores and are named after astronomer Bart Bok who proposed their existence in the 1940s.
I had planned for this to be a quick project as the Pacman was beginning to set low in the northeast sky. As is common however, the weather did not cooperate and I needed two months to capture a sufficient number of reasonable sub-exposures. I was ready to abandon the image, but finally had a pleasant evening last week that allowed me to finish.
A nice and informative narrative of Bok globules in the Pacman is available from a NASA press release at:
https://hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2006/news-2006-13.html.
I hope you like the image!
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