Your guide to astrophotography

The Pacman Nebula is something I’ve been wanting to image for quite some time. Mostly because it looks like what it is called… Pacman. NGC 281 is a very bright emission nebula in Cassiopeia only 9,200 light years away. Emission nebulas emit light due to ionized gases within the cloud.

To date, this is the longest image I’ve ever captured, coming in at 30 hours of imaging time! And more amazingly, I’ve had 9 nights of clear skies over the course of about 3 weeks. It usually would take 1-2 months to get this amount of imaging time.

The Pelican Nebula is an emission nebula within the constellation Cygnus, the Swan. The Pelican Nebula is identified as IC5070, but the prominent feature imaged below is a small portion, which is identified as IC5067.

The Pelican Nebula is an active star forming region, which helps to ionize the gasses, allowing for easier imaging through narrowband filters.

The Pelican Nebula is 1,800 light years away. This nebula is quite large. The image below is a single panel. In order to capture the entire nebula, I would need to create a mosaic 3 panels wide by 4 panels tall (12 panels total).

The Eagle Nebula is a cluster of stars newly formed or in the process of forming. On April 1, 1995, the Hubble Space Telescope captured an image of the central region of the nebula, which is now famously referred to as the Pillars of Creation. You can see these pillars within the middle of my image. You can al see another feature within this image, the Stellar Spire, which is located to the top-left of the Pillars. Just like the pillars, the Spire is a birthplace of stars.

Located in the constellation Serpens, The Eagle Nebula is 5,700 light years away. Officially, the Eagle Nebula is considered an open cluster. However, a much larger region, identified as IC 4703, is an emission nebula, which contains a strong hydrogen-alpha signal.

In the constellation Ursa Major, you can find M82, The Cigar Galaxy. M82 is part of a group of galaxies, called the M81 group. M82 and M81 (Bode’s Galaxy) are the brightest members of the group. M82 and the associated group are fairly close, only 12 million light years away, making it a fairly easy galaxy to image due because it is so bright.

The starburst activity, shown in yellow/orange color, is due to M82 interacting with M81. The starburst activity is better seen with the use of a hygrogen-alpha filter.