An Ardrossan man has captured the stunning sights of the Pacman Nebula from his back garden.
Paul Messenger used specialist equipment to capture a detailed shot of the nebula, which is officially known as NGC 281 but named Pacman due to its likeness to the video game character.
The bright emission nebula resides within the H II region of the northern constellation Cassiopeia, situated within the Milky Way's Perseus Spiral Arm.
It is around 9,500 lightyears from Earth and it took Paul around three hours of data to create the image using equipment including an equatorial mount and a sky-watcher scope.
He explained: "You need to line the mount up to Polaris, the North star, to less than 10 arc seconds using software.
"Cool the camera to -5 degrees. It's not a DSLR that I use, it's a dedicated astro cam. Focus using software again. Add dew heaters to the scope.
"Guide using another small scope and camera locked on a star. Run it all off a mini PC and connect into that from the comfort of the office. Then decide what you're going to image."
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