Helix

[vin_ap (Caleb)]

Wasn't sure how to edit my previous post so resorted to starting a new one, apologies in advance. After getting some advice from fellow astro-photographers I acquired 2.5 hrs of RGB data and added that to the L-enhance data from pervious nights. Definitely happy with the noise reduction and the enhanced detail but due to some guiding issues didn't end up with pin point stars.

Overall I am happy that I have been able to see the helix more that I have ever seen before (captured by myself).

Going to park this target for this year and going to give some galaxy clusters a try.

Thanks for looking..

Clear skies !

- Vin

[PKay (Peter)]

Great result Vin!

The Helix is a feint and difficult target and you have captured it well.

Just the sort of skill you need to find those galaxies.

NGC300 is the go at the mome.

Happy hunting!

[Robert_T]

You've certainly got the faint detail of the brow coming through. Interesting colour as well - anything special or different in your processing here?

[vin_ap (Caleb)]

Thanks Pkay,

Absolutely Robert, previously I was just trying to use the L-enhance data with a luminance layer extracted to bring out the detail but found the more hours I put into it I felt the SNR was diminishing (this is not to say that a different setup wouldn't produce a better result) but then decided to add RGB data to the previous. What I noticed was I was able to push a bit more in processing without creating too much noise.

This is a total of 4hr x L-enhance + 2hr x RGB OSC data.

Also I use a Sharpstar 90 APO