Snapshot of a Helix

[codemonkey]

A mere 18hr snapshot as Andy coined it.

I've actually been working on this since June, but everything kept going wrong with this target. Glad to have finally imaged it though, this is the first time I managed this one.

Big one here (https://www.astrobin.com/full/6vpp7l/)

[JA]

Lovely colour and detailed image Lee :thumbsup:

Best
JA

[Tulloch]

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

[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.

[strongmanmike]

Great shot of the Helix Lee :thumbsup:

Mike

[marc4darkskies]

Good detail & depth. Nicely done Lee! :thumbsup:

[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" :rofl:

[multiweb]

Another corker Lee. :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[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! :D

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

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! :thumbsup:

[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 :thumbsup::thumbsup:

[DavidTrap]

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

DT

[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.

[graham.hobart]

Christ on a bike that is good Lee. :thumbsup:

[vlazg]

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

[Cosmic]

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

[codemonkey]

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...



Thanks very much JA :-)



Thanks Andrew!



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



Thanks Mike :-)



Thanks Marcus!



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.



Thanks mate :-)



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 ;-)



Thanks very much Peter :-)



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



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.



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



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!



Thanks very much Daniel, glad I could provide some inspiration :D

[multiweb]

Great details in the highres. One for the cool wall. :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[Inmykombi]

Well worth persevering to get an image like that. well done.

[ChrisV]

Very cool indeed. You have a lot of detail for under 20 hours!! Beautiful colour too

[codemonkey]

Thanks again mate :)



Thanks Geoff!



Thanks very much Chris :-)

I think the colour could use some work... I'll get around to a repro eventually.

[Slawomir]

Really sharp and great detail Lee :thumbsup:

[Nikolas]

Love the detail in this image great work!

[codemonkey]

Thanks Suavi :-)



Thanks Nik! :-)

I finally got around to reprocessing it. Fixed some clipping of the red/blue channels, due in part to a loss of colour when converting to sRGB. Also balanced the colours a bit better (well, hopefully better!).

[marc4darkskies]

A reasonably subtle but significant improvement over the original Lee. Well done! A gorgeous image!

[codemonkey]

Thanks Marc; appreciate the feedback ;-)