The Pacman Nebula as it is rarely seen, surrounded in dust!

[cfinn]

The Pacman Nebula in HaLRGB. I decided to go as deep as I could afford to with the limited moonless clear sky time in Luminance to really bring out the dust. I've not seen many examples that really showcase this as the Pacman is so often captured in SHO. It took a few processing attempts to get to the result I wanted, and I learned a lot of new techniques in PixInsight along the way. I think I am finally happy with the result.

Full acquisition details and a description of my processing choices can be found on Astrobin.

CS

[Magnum]

That's different, not seen a Pacman image with the surrounding dust before, very nice.

For me it would be even better if the black point was moved over a bit or selectively darken the rift within the Pacman a bit to give it more contrast.

Lee

 

[ollypenrice]

The best I've ever seen and so much more interesting than the usual NB versions. Everything's right in this image - the background (if you can call it that!) the gas and the stars.

Olly

[Fegato]

Nice one - this is on my list to do in broadband if I ever get a clear spell, as I saw another one fairly recently that revealed a lot of dust. Well done!

[cfinn]

13 hours ago, Magnum said:

That's different, not seen a Pacman image with the surrounding dust before, very nice.

For me it would be even better if the black point was moved over a bit or selectively darken the rift within the Pacman a bit to give it more contrast.

Lee

 

Thank you for the feedback! Black point adjustment is always a subjective thing I struggle with and I think I agree in this case I could darken the background a little more.

[cfinn]

13 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

The best I've ever seen and so much more interesting than the usual NB versions. Everything's right in this image - the background (if you can call it that!) the gas and the stars.

Olly

Thank you Olly, this means a lot!

[cfinn]

10 hours ago, Fegato said:

Nice one - this is on my list to do in broadband if I ever get a clear spell, as I saw another one fairly recently that revealed a lot of dust. Well done!

Best of luck! Let me know how it goes. I could begin to see the dust after only 1 hour of luminance, but it took quite a lot more to bring it out fully and it could easily do with 2 or 3 times more integration time. I had to use a lot more noise reduction than I would ideally like and I suspect there’s more detail that could be teased out with some extra time investment. It’s always a question of how much you are willing to invest in just one target and three nights is usually my max.

Edited December 7, 2023 by cfinn

[Rodd]

Finally, a wider field image of this target that doesn’t scream out to be cropped.  I wonder how far the extension reaches at top. 

[cfinn]

13 hours ago, cfinn said:

Thank you for the feedback! Black point adjustment is always a subjective thing I struggle with and I think I agree in this case I could darken the background a little more.

Here we are @Magnum. I adjusted the black point just a small amount to darken the background further but keeping it just below the point where it starts black clipping. I think it is a good improvement. Thank you for the suggestion!

[Magnum]

47 minutes ago, cfinn said:

Here we are @Magnum. I adjusted the black point just a small amount to darken the background further but keeping it just below the point where it starts black clipping. I think it is a good improvement. Thank you for the suggestion!

yes I like that, or if you want to leave the background lighter you could just do a local adjustment to the dark rift in the middle.

Didnt mean to criticise it, its a lovely image, 

Lee

[cfinn]

1 hour ago, Magnum said:

yes I like that, or if you want to leave the background lighter you could just do a local adjustment to the dark rift in the middle.

Didnt mean to criticise it, its a lovely image, 

Lee

No no, it's all good! The critique is very welcome 🙂

[Allinthehead]

Love this, great detail in the Pacman and the dust is the icing.

[cfinn]

14 hours ago, Allinthehead said:

Love this, great detail in the Pacman and the dust is the icing.

Many thanks! Glad you like it 🙂

[Fegato]

On 08/12/2023 at 13:12, Magnum said:

yes I like that, or if you want to leave the background lighter you could just do a local adjustment to the dark rift in the middle.

Didnt mean to criticise it, its a lovely image, 

Lee

I'm just processing my attempt at this now. Interestingly, that dark rift does actually seem to be full of dust - I can see that before doing much other processing. So while a dark contrast would be more dramatic, it's possibly not exactly what's there

[Mr Spock]

Fabulous image 👍