The Pacman Nebula

Pacman Nebula

Other names:NGC 281, IC 11, Sh2-184
Distance:9200 light years
Date:17-Nov-2018, 14-Feb-2019, 15-Feb-2019, 16-Feb-2019
Telescope:GSO RC8 carbon, TS Optics 65/420 Imaging Star
Field of view:1° 8' x 44'
Cameras:Canon T3i mono mod
Filters:Baader 7nm Ha, Baader 8.5nm O-III
Mount:Skywatcher EQ6-R
Guiding:ZWO OAG, Lacerta MGen-II
Exposure time:15h 45min
Ha 41 x 15min
O-III 22 x 15min
Sizes 1920 x 1080 | 4974 x 3204
This is my first narrow band image. It is a bicolor image made from Ha and O-III only. Using a method developed by Steve Cannistra a third channel is generated by multiplying the pixel values of Ha and O-III. I modified Steve's method slightly and used the square root of the product with both data set normated to [0..1]. Following the HSO pallet Ha was mapped to red, O to blue and the artificial channel to green. After the mapping Ha was used as luminance. Almost all structure in the image is in the Ha data. The O-III signal is weak and does not show so much structure.