My deepest ever astrophoto. Helix Nebula 1.75 hours

[tornado33]

Howdy
Ive just finsished quickly processing a 1 hour 45 minute image of the Helix Nebula I took earlier this morning. Its 7 x 15 minute ISO 400 images, using UHCS and UV/IR filter, MPCC and modified 350D camera on my 10 inch F5.6 scope, started imaging about 3 am, off axis hand guided. The Northeast Arc is clearly visible, as is an object called the Northeast Object, a little further to the left. Those objects are mapped out here http://exploration.vanderbilt.edu/images/news/article_main/news_helix_nebula2.jpg

I may have a hint of the Northwest and Southeast Outer features. Theres a number of faint background galaxies scattered throughout. Darks flats and offsets processed in Iris then finished in Photoshop. Ive never gone so long on one object before, amazing how far it moves across the sky in that time too. I was lucky to get it as when I got up the scope that Id left out after getting about 2 hours sleep was covered in dew, but using a dewshield kept it from getting on the secondary. It was foggy too but it miraciously cleared as I prepared to take some short test images to verify I was on the Helix and ready to go.

I might see about reprocessing it again later on to see if I can coax more detail out of it.
Scott

[Lester]

Fantastic Scott,

Hand guided, I realise what that is like.

WOW!!

[iceman]

WOW! Stunning, Scott. Just beautiful and so smooth.

[[1ponders]]

:eyepop: I'm pretty speechless Scott. And that takes some doing. :clap:

[Dennis]

Hi Scott

That is a superb image. You have managed to control the colours beautifully, bringing out the faint details you describe, so well.

Well done!

Dennis

[h0ughy]

what a winner, I will bring the lappy and IP over sometime to reprosess the image to see what else can be coaxed out of the originals. Beautiful Scott!

[Striker]

Excellant job Scott.

Thats a wonderful image.

I havn't seen the arc so visible in any other images before....great stuff.

[tornado33]

Thanks all :)
Gee it was cold too, and very damp, but Im glad I was able to get the imaging done.
Scott

[RB]

What a stunning image Scott.
I don't know what else to say except congratulations.

:eyepop:

[tornado33]

Thanks.
Ive used the masking method of overlaying a darker image over a bright one to get both inner detail and increase the faint outer stuff :)
Scott

[xelasnave]

:eyepop: After that guiding effort you could get a job watching grass grow:D .. The effort certainly has produced an excellent result:thumbsup: ... with winter coming on you will be able to expose and guide for up to 12 hours;)
alex

[ving]

like the satelite runnign thru the corner :P

great image :thumbsup:
love the helix!

[josh]

Holy crap thats a fine shot if ever ive seen one!!!
Looks like a hubble pic
You must be pretty happy with that

[Lester]

That second image is just a double WOW!

[h0ughy]

Hey Scott,

After calling in from being up at the hospital with my son I am glad I picked up those raw files, have done a little bit of processing with IP2.75, and one passed through noiseworks community edition.

[tornado33]

Thanks everyone.
Nice work Dave IP looks like its working well :)
I like winter for imaging as I can start so early too, dark just after 6pm now
Scott

[h0ughy]

man that thing is faint, you are simply amazing Mr Alder, that was the best I could do with those images, digital development is a wonderful tool in IP

[[1ponders]]

Interesting comparison Scott and h0ughy. Scott how did you get rid of the amp glow that shows up quite clearly in the H0ugh processed ones? There doesn't seem to be a trace of it in your original processing (which for me comes out on top from the four processing runs).

[Striker]

Great work guys....

Houghy just 1 thing with IP you must select Edit and copy a portion of image and crop some all around the image...you can see where the images have been stacked and you get that difference in frames...this will affect your histogram and should be done before you apply the digital development....just a tip mate....get rid of it before processing....but otherwise a great job on the images guys.

[acropolite]

Seriously nice image Scott:camera:

[h0ughy]

caught out!!!! yes i spent exactly 12 minutes processing those images, thanks for the tip though:thumbsup:

[tornado33]

Howdy.
1ponders, I use IRIS to do the dark subtraction, I generally try to take at least 2 darks just after my imaging run (so is at similar temperature) as the camera isnt temp controlled theres always a slight variation, so the darks never 100% match the light frames, Iris fixes that by a dark optomization proceedure where it askes me to draw a small box on one of the light images in a part free of stars or nebulae, but encompassing some hot pixels, it then matches the dark for a close to perfect subtraction. In theory, a 5 minute dark could be used with 10 minute light images and so on, though for best results I try to keep same dark times as light exposure times. Ive actually used darks taken on different nights to reasonable effect. I believe the next update of Images Plus will have this feature also.
Info on the dark optomization here
http://www.astrosurf.com/buil/iris/tutorial3/doc13_us.htm
scroll down to Preprocessing where it will say
"Note: you can optimize the dark map during the preprocessing phase, or in a separate step (for this run Dark optimization command of Digital Photo menu). Here, for simplify, we consider similar conditions between the science images and the dark images."
Scott

[strongmanmike]

I enjoyed looking at this iamge Scott it's an all-round great image :thumbsup:

You are getting a lot out of that 350D, just imagine what you could get out of a real CCD...? :eyepop:

Mike :D

[Octane]

Scott,

I think this has to be your best to date.

Phenomenal.

Well done.

Regards,
Humayun

[seeker372011]

great image-the d etail you have captured is quite out of the ordinary.

BTW most people seem to recommend an odd number of dark frames when processing in IRIS..not that is seems to have mattered given yur fine result

[tornado33]

Thanks.
Gee thats interesting re the odd no. of darks, however I might try that next time and shoot 3 darks.
Scott

[tornado33]

Just thinking, I must try Berts lens on the helix, @f2.8 I may be able to go even deeper :)
Scott

[h0ughy]

not tonight you wont! BTw, would you then up the iso rating to say 800 or go 200 as well as the 400?

[tornado33]

Yes weather is shocking now.
Id shoot at ISO 200, 5 or 10 mins max each exposure, a higher ISO would see too much skyfog as F2.8 aperature lets in a huge amount of light.
Scott

[PhotonCollector]

well done Scott, that's a fine image and you got the outer loop!

Paul M

[h0ughy]

And we know the extents that Scott will go to to prove he is loopy , don't we Paul;) :D