I already captured this well known nebula over four years ago. This time I wanted to go a little bit deeper to interesting interior of NGC281 Pacman nebula, but it requires quite a lot of captured data to reveal details in this. Despite over eight hours of narrowband subframes plus some RGB data the result does still not make me quite happy. That is why I processed this data now, though subframes were captured almost three months ago. Processing has shown some detail and hidden features, but low transparency has lowered signal to noice ratio. So I was not able to perform stronger deconvolution or other sharpening techniques.
NGC281 Pacman has been discovered by E. E. Barnard in 1883. It is a star formation region located about 9,500 light years away. Inside Pacman there is young star open cluster IC1590 that contains several hot, blue stars. Also several Bok globules can be identified inside Pacman. Inside these globules new born stars (protostars) have been detected in infrared spectrum. The largest globule is about 2.6 light years across. Pacman interior is very interesting area for high resolution astroimaging. But patience in waiting for good conditions is recommended.
Large version: https://astrojolo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/N281HORGBcrop.jpg
Clear skies!
Image technical data:
Date: 14,15.10.2018
Location: Nieborowice, Poland
Telescope: Meade ACF 10"
Corrector: AP CCDT67
Camera: QHY163M, gain 100
Mount: SW EQ6
Guiding: SW 80/400 + ASI290MM
Exposure: HO 150:100 x2 minutes, RGB 50:30:40 x30 seconds
Conditions: suburban sky, seeing good, transparency average
