Pacman Nebula

Gear

Acquisition

  •  40 Light Images at 120 gain, 300s exposure 
  • 30 Dark Images
  • 200 Bias Images
  • No Flats

The Pacman Nebula. AKA NGC 281. AKA SH2-184. AKA IC 11. About 9500 light years away.

Who doesn’t love a classic video game.  I like how a star is almost in good position to act as an eye.

Processing this image was pretty straight forward. I used DeepSkyStacker to stack the images. No flats here still. One day I’ll use flats but I seem to be doing ok without them at the moment. I think everyone that starts this hobby says that to themselves.

Then in Photoshop I did the following:

  • Color Balance
  • Curve adjustments
  • Gradient correction using GradientXTerminator
  • Saturation Boost
  • Vibrance Boost
  • Noise Reduction using Astronomy tool – Space Noise Reduction action
  • Noise Reduction using Astronomy tool – Deep Space Noise Reduction action
  • Sharpening
  • Minimized stars in Photoshop
  • Minimized stars using Astronomy tool – Make Stars Smaller action

Overall, I like how this image came out. I can clearly see Pacman in the nebula. 

 

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