Pacman Nebula

This 36-minute image was the quickest stack in the set. The dark dust lane cutting into the glowing cloud gives the nebula the open mouth that earned it the Pacman nickname.

NGC 281 is a star-forming region in Cassiopeia. Young, massive stars make the gas glow, while their radiation and winds sculpt the darker columns and dense knots of dust inside it. Some of those knots may eventually form more stars.

The nickname makes it easy to spot the shape, but the real story is even better: this is a stellar nursery roughly 10,000 light-years away, caught in the middle of making new suns.