NGC 281 - Pacman Nebula (Monty Chandler)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Cassiopeia (Cas) · Contains: HD5005 · HD5032 · IC 1590 · LBN 615 · LBN 616 · NGC 281 · Sh2-184

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NGC 281 - Pacman Nebula

Link: https://montychandler.smugmug.com/Astrophotography/Nebula/i-vn3TzJp/A

Powered byPixInsight

NGC 281 - Pacman Nebula

Link: https://montychandler.smugmug.com/Astrophotography/Nebula/i-vn3TzJp/A

NGC281 - Pacman Nebula in the constellation Cassiopeia.

This image was shot on the moonlit nights of September 26, 27 and 28, 2021. It's comprised of 430 180s subframes taken with a ZWO ASI071MC Pro camera cooled to 20f and SkyWatcher Esprit 120ED Apochromatic Triplet Refractor OTA (840mm @f7) using a Radian Telescopes 2" Triad Ultra Quad-Band Narrowband filter on a Sky Watcher EQ6r Pro equitorial mount (smart tripod).

Processed manually in Pixinsight to a SHO hubble pallet. Image acquisition using Astrophotography Tool (APT) and guiding using PHD2 (50mm WO guidescope & ASI 120mm mini guidecam). Adobe Bridge to update all the metadata, like these comments.

NGC281 is located 9,200 Light Years from earth within the Perseus Spiral Arm of the Milky Way. Yes, that's a long way away and a very long time for light to travel enabling this photograph.

In a vacuum (space), light travels at 670,616,629 mph. To find the distance of a light-year, you multiply this speed by the number of hours in a year (8,766).

The result: One light-year equals 5,878,625,370,000 miles! How many miles is 9,200 light years?

(6 trillion * 9200) = 55,200 Trillion - I have no idea what that number is, but I do know it's a long way away for a guy using a small telescope spinning 1,000 mph on a little rock to grab an image. There's a lot of tech involved.

To state the obvious (and for our younger gazers), NGC 281 is also known as the Pacman Nebula for its resemblance to the 1980's video game and cartoon character.

I really hope you enjoy the image. There's 21.5 hours of exposure time here. At night - all night.

Please note: The following tables are updated every 24 hours.

Distribution of astrophotographers

This table shows the number of distinct astrophotographers who have been assigned and IOTD/TP award compared to the total number of images awarded.
	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

Distribution of subject types

This table shows the distribution of awards per subject type, compared to the popularity of images of that subject type.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
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Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

Distribution of data sources

This table shows the distribution of awards per data source, compared to the popularity of images acquired from that data source.
	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

The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
Promotions by Submitters When 3 distinct Submitters promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for Top Pick status. This requirement, in addition to anonymization of images and distribution to only a subset of them, prevents biases and ensures that the best images are selected.
Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	6528006
PixInsight job	ZZCQR19SHEYJ96ZTIJ4Y7U4QB91MQXCC
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	00h52m51s.500
RA (top/left)	00h55m12s.376
RA (top/right)	00h57m40s.817
RA (bottom/right)	00h50m23s.211
RA (bottom/left)	00h48m11s.276

Dec (center)	+56°33′50″.60
Dec (top/left)	+55°42′06″.71
Dec (top/right)	+57°12′35″.31
Dec (bottom/right)	+57°25′25″.40
Dec (bottom/left)	+55°54′26″.93

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NGC 281 - Pacman Nebula

NGC 281 - Pacman Nebula

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NGC 281 - Pacman Nebula

NGC 281 - Pacman Nebula

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