NGC 281 - Pacman Nebula

NGC 281 is a gorgeous nebula and a very popular object with astrophotographers. I only imaged it once before many years ago and it was the first object where I used a hydrogen alpha filter (Astronomik EOS Ha-Clip). NGC 281 also goes by IC 11 or Sh2-184 and is a bright emission nebula in the constellation of Cassiopeia. It is 48 light-years across and contains numerous Bok globules visible in the image. Bok globules are small dark nebulae where stars are likely to form. It is nicknamed the Pacman Nebula due to its similar appearance to the popular 1980s video game that I spent many quarters on.

This was the third image I used with the EdgeHD 800/hyperstar and I am quite impressed with how quickly it obtains photons. Although not shown on this image because it is cropped, there seems to be some alignment problem with the corrector plate, collimation, or possibly tilt as the stars on the edge of the FOV are misshapen. Fortunately the stars for most of the FOV are pretty good. 

I also used the IDAS NBZ dual band filter and seems to work really well with the hyperstar and OSC cameras. The processing was not difficult except for adding the stars back but I did spend some time deciding how far to go with color enhancements. In the end I decided not to do much at all as the natural color seems to produce the greatest amount of detail plus I kind of like it.  I really like detail of outer regions of this nebula and also the dark canyon looking region in the lower area of the nebula.

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NGC 281 - Pacman Nebula
Dates: 9-4, 9-6, 9-7
Camera: ZWO ASI294MC-Pro
Telescope: Celestron EdgeHD 800
Barlow: None
Focal Length: 2032mm (native)
F/10 (native) F/1.9 (Hyperstar)
Focal Reducer: Starizona Hyperstar
Mount: Orion Atlas Pro
Filter Adaptor: Starizona Filter Drawer
Filter: Baader IDAS NBZ (2-inch)
Focuser: ZWO EAF
Autoguiding: ASI120 Mini attached to an Orion ST80
Exposure: NBZ 121 x 120
Gain: 120
Offset 0
Temp: 0 C
Processing: Asiair app, PixInsight, Photoshop, Topaz DeNoiseAI.

https://www.instagram.com/astroquest1/
http://astroquest1.blogspot.com/
https://www.astrobin.com/users/kurtzepp/collections/
http://youtube.com/c/AstroQuest1