The Pacman Nebula (NGC 281) is an emmision nebula found in Cassiopeia. It takes up about 20x30 arc minutes on the sky (about the size of the full moon) and is 9,200 light years away. There are several images below showing different views.

This first image is a zoomed in "narrow band" image with the stars removed. Narrow band imaging is done with special science filters that tell us were certain chemicals are. We're looking at Sulfer, Hydrogen, and Oxygen here. Further down below is a normal RGB image which delivers what our eyes would naturally see. Also, stars were removed from this image to reveal just the nebula.

Scroll down to see more images from the same data.

This next image is a zoomed back out to show the whole nebula. Still narrow band and no stars.

Next, the stars are added back in.

Lastly, as part of the same run of images, here is the visual (RGB) version.

The RGB and narrow band data for the four images above was taken remotely from Dark Sky New Mexico with a 106mm f/5 Takahashi refractor and an ASI2600 camera. Three nights were used to collect more than 19 hours of exposure. 10/26/2022, 10/27/2022 and 10/28//2022.

All processing was in Pixinsight.