| Date 2015/05/12 Observation place My permanent observatory in Longueuil in white light pollution zone |
Technical
| Telescope | Orion 80ED refractor - Diameter 80mm, focal length 480mm, f / 6 |
| Mount | Celestron CGEM |
| Imaging camera | Atik 383 L + monochrome regulated at -20o Celsius |
| Autoguiding camera | ZWO ASI 120MM with optical splitter |
| Auto Guidance Accuracy (RMS) | 1,32 '' of arc (2.64 '' of arc in total) |
| Image type | Ha (Ha-OIII-OIII) |
| Exhibition | Ha (11 x 10 'bin 2 × 2), OIII (11 x 10' Bin 2 × 2) |
| Image acquisition software | Maxim DL |
| Guidance software | PHD Guiding 2 |
| Pretreatment | Maxim DL |
| Treatment | Photoshop and PixInsight |
Object description
| Object type | Emission nebula "The Pacman Nebula" |
| Constellation | Cassiopeia |
| Visual magnitude | 7,4 |
| Distance | 10000 light years |
| Diameter | 80 light years |
| Dimension seen from Earth | 35 x 30 arc minutes |
| The NGC281 emission nebula is nicknamed "The Pacman Nebula" in reference to the 80s arcade game hero with that name. Indeed, with a little imagination, we can see his mouth swallowing everything on the left side of the nebula! NGC281 is a pale nebula associated with the open cluster IC1590. It is about 10000 light-years distant from Earth and its diameter is 80 light-years. Its radiation is mainly made up of clouds of gas and dust in hydrogen. The nebula is visible with an amateur telescope only in a sky with little light pollution. In this photo, taken in a sky of extreme light pollution (white area), the use of the hydrogen-Alpha filter as a luminance image made it possible to bring out all the beauty of this splendid nebula in this light spectrum. |
| Richard Beauregard Sky Astro - CCD My impression "We cannot be alone in this gigantic universe" |