ScienceDownEast | ScienceDownEast Astrophotography | Nebulae | NGC 281 Pacman Nebula | NGC 281

NGC 281
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NGC 281, IC 11 or Sh2-184 is a bright emission nebula and part of an H II region in the northern constellation of Cassiopeia and is part of the Milky Way's Perseus Spiral Arm. This 20×30 arcmin sized nebulosity is also associated with open cluster IC 1590, several Bok globules and the multiple star, B 1. It collectively forms Sh2-184, spanning over a larger area of 40 arcmin. A recent distance from radio parallaxes of water masers at 22 GHz made during 2014 is estimated it lies 2.82±0.20 kpc from us....

Total image time was 44 minutes.

Moon Phase First Quarter
Camera Seestar S50 Pro (4K Sony IMX585 sensor)
Optics 260 mm focal length, f/5.2, 50 mm aperture
Filter LP
Binning 1x1
Stacking StackingWizard, 44 frames
Date 2026-09-18
AstroWizard Processing
Crop
GraXpert background extraction (0.5) (x2)
Flatten sky background
Color calibration (x2)
BlurXTerminator (0.6)
NoiseXTerminator (linear, 0.6) (x2)
Stretch (deep)
Stretch (deep) (starless)
Star removal (StarXTerminator)
Curves adjustment (x10)
Saturation adjustment (x2)
Contrast (pop) adjustment (x3)
Color recalibration
NoiseXTerminator (non-linear, 0.6)
Star recombination (screen blend)



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