[codemonkey (Lee)]

Thanks guys, appreciate the kind words. I haven't responded yet because I intended to do a bit of a reprocess first but I haven't gotten around to it yet. Think I'm starting to get a touch burnt out, too many late nights trying to fix these damned optical issues...

Originally Posted by JA

Lovely colour and detailed image Lee

Best
JA

Thanks very much JA :-)

Originally Posted by Tulloch

Very nice image, really captured the "eye" well.

Thanks Andrew!

Originally Posted by Placidus

Excellent fine detail Lee.


As mentioned elsewhere, lovely to see those little PGC galaxies. If you hadn't labelled them, what with narrowband and all, we'd not have thought to look for them.

Thanks Mike :-) Yeah, those PGC fuzzies were a bit of a surprise for me too.

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

Great shot of the Helix Lee

Mike

Thanks Mike :-)

Originally Posted by marc4darkskies

Good detail & depth. Nicely done Lee!

Thanks Marcus!

Originally Posted by Tulloch

As a planetary imager myself who takes 30000+ frames in about 3 minutes for one image, I find the concept of referring to an 18hr exposure as a "snapshot"

LOL I still remember being amazed by people doing 10hr total exposures, let alone 18! There's lots of targets out there with subtle, dim detail but something about the Helix seems to inspire lots of people to go deep.

Originally Posted by multiweb

Another corker Lee.

Thanks mate :-)

Originally Posted by Andy01

Nice deep Helix's never get old Lee and you've done well with your fast system to all that detail in a mere 18 hrs!

Now you're just getting started of course, those outer chevrons will become even more visible with another 20 or so.

From past experience though, you have to send them a handwritten note to come to the sensor party, and even then they'll only come a pixel at a time!

But seriously, it looks great!

Thanks muchly Andy :-) I can't even see a hint of half the stuff you pulled out in yours... and nah, when I set out on this one I had no intention of going deep here... too much competition ;-)

Originally Posted by Peter Ward

That is a very classy image Lee.
I really like the super tight pristine stars embedded into buttery smooth nebulosity.
You are definitely on a roll with this one

Thanks very much Peter :-)

Originally Posted by DavidTrap

Wow! Might just stop my current run on 7293...

DT

LOL Thanks David, glad you like it :-) And of course, don't stop on my account.

Originally Posted by Paul Haese

Looks like I am following you around the sky. I too have had issues with guiding on this target for some reason.

I really like the detail you have obtained. The blending of the OIII with the Ha also works nicely. I do think though you need to go further to capture the outer outbursts. It's going to worth it in the end. Some time ago I did 111 hours on this with my FSQ. Doubling yours will almost certainly capture more data than I did in that epic run I did. I think it is worth putting in the extra hours.

Thanks Paul :-) 111hrs is nuts! I might add more to the Helix in future years, but I had no intention of going too deep on this one and I'm stickin' to that for the moment.

Originally Posted by graham.hobart

Christ on a bike that is good Lee.

haha. I haven't heard that expression before. Thanks Graham :-)

Originally Posted by vlazg

Beautiful rendition of the Helix Lee, the Mesu appears to be working well

Thanks George! The Mesu's quite capable but I'm still convinced it's pretty sensitive to balance and I haven't nailed it. I hope the Mach 1's still performing well for you!

Originally Posted by Cosmic

Its images like these that make people strive to do better. Thanks for sharing your work, its an epic eye

Thanks very much Daniel, glad I could provide some inspiration