NGC 281 The Pacman Nebula

Hi Paul,

This is all I could find on NGC 281

Cassiopeia is filled with many glorious nebulae, the result of resting in a prime spot of the Milky Way. NGC 281, an emission nebula plus cluster, is a terrific example of the "Queen's" jewels. Also known as the "Pac-Man" cluster because of it's shapely appearance to the famous video game, NGC 281 is a strong HII region of classic star formation found a short distance away from Schedar (Alpha Cassiopeiae). The brightest star in the center, a 7.7 magnitude OB double star, providing illumination to the interior of the nebula and excitation of the surrounding hydrogen gases. The double star itself is a part of a cluster of star known as IC 1590. The emission nebula also carries a Sharpless 184 designation.

As with many emission nebulae in the night sky, the Pac-Man covers a lot of space, roughly the same angular size as the full moon. The easy way to put this object in an eyepiece is to center Schedar in an eyepiece, turn off the drive motors, and wait 16 minutes.. The nebula is best seen with 8" or larger scopes in dark skies, though UHC or OIII filters bring smaller apertures into the game. The resulting view will be a large, irregular glow around the bright center star.

Great image Carl, I tried to image this and made a dogs dinner of it. Yours is spot on. Well done mate

Great image Carl, I tried to image this and made a dogs dinner of it. Yours is spot on. Well done mate

Well done Carl cracking image mate.

Gary: In fairness you tried 281 in narrowband, HA, OIII, S2 wavelenghts. As it was your first go at narrowband imaging, I think you did alright!

Carl,

Well done! The colour is really good as is the depth. The only change I would recommend is the orientation of the camera (to portrait mode).