APOD: 2022 August 10 - Dust Clouds of the Pacman Nebula

Good evening, Rallypoint, and welcome to the August 10th Hump Day edition of Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD): "Dust Clouds of the Pacman Nebula." I'm not sure what its name was in 1980 (the first year Pacman hit the arcades), but NGC 281 carries the Pacman nickname today. Astronomer E.E. Barnard first discovered the nebula in August 1883, describing it as "a large faint nebula, very diffuse." It lies about 9,200 light years from Earth in the constellation Cassiopeia.

NGC 281 is known informally as the "Pacman Nebula" because of its appearance in optical images. The nebula gives researchers a unique opportunity to observe high-mass stars due to its position relative to the plane of our galaxy. Things seem to be obscured by dust in this image, but that is not the case. I'll post a composite image of NGC 281 in xray (from Chandra) and infrared (Spitzer) in a separate comment.