This is the region of central Cassiopeia containing a rich assortment of deep-sky objects: The so-called Ghosts of Cassiopeia nebulas at top, the Owl Cluster, aka the ET Cluster, at bottom, and the Pacman Nebula at right. The Ghosts of Cassiopeia are the magenta/cyan reflection and emission nebulas officially called IC 59 and IC 63. Both are reflecting the light of bluish Gamma Cassiopeiae, aka Navi. The "Ghost" name for these objects is a recent appellation. See https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap191025.html The star cluster at bottom is NGC 457, with smaller NGC 436 above it. It is variously called the Owl Cluster or the E.T. Cluster. The emission nebula at right is the Pacman Nebula, NGC 281, below the stars Eta (Achird) and Alpha (Schedar) Cassiopeiae. The blue star at far left is Delta Cassiopeiae, aka Ruchbah. It along with Gamma and Alpha form the middle three stars of the W of Cassiopeia. The field here is 7.5° x 5°, similar to binoculars. This is stack of 8 x 16-minute exposures through an IDAS NB1 nebula filter to bring out the faint nebulosity, blended with a stack of 15 x 8-minute exposures with an Astronomik UV/IR Cut filter for a white light normal colour image. All with the Canon Ra (at ISO 1600 for the NB1 filter shots and at ISO 1000 for the normal shots) through the SharpStar EDPH 61mm refractor at f/4.5. All stacking, alignment and blending with Photoshop. No LENR or darks applied, just inter-frame dithering to eliminate thermal noise specks which were prominent in the long high-ISO filtered shots. Autoguiding and dithering was with the MGEN3 stand-alone autoguider. Faint nebulosity was brought out with luminosity mask adjustments with Lumenzia.
Gum Nebula area of Vela and Puppis. Taken from Atacama Lodge, Chile, March 19, 2010, with modified Canon 5D MkII and Sigma 50mm lens at f/4, for stack of 10 x 6 minute exposures (Mean combined) at ISO 800 plus 2 x 6 minutes with Kenko Softon filter. High contrast boost and Selective Colour adjustments to bring out nebulocity while retaining neutral sky.
Gum nebula area of Vela. This is a stack of 4 x 6 minute exposures at f/4 with the Sigma 50mm lens and Canon 5D MkII at ISO 800, plus 2 x 6 minutes with Kenko Softon filter for star glows. Taken from Atacama Lodge near San Pedro de Atacama in Chile, May, 2011.
