First attempt at the Helix Nebula

[Doogs38]

Having viewed the Helix Nebula over the years using a big dob, and only seeing faint shades of grey, it's a joy to capture it in colour. There are plenty of Helix images in this forum and I apologise for adding another one!

I took about an hour of OSC RGB subs and while they looked ok, they didn't have the colour 'saturation' I'd expected. I then swapped the IR/UV filter for a Baader UHC-S and it was a completely different story - the colour was richly evident from the very first sub ... the filter did a great job. I'm happy with the end result thus far and will continue to collect additional data over the next few months. Thanks for looking. Alex

SW120ED x 0.85 Reducer/Flattener
18 x 300s subs, ASI294MC
Baader UHC-S filter
Darks, flats, dark flats. APP, PS, DeNoise then cropped.

[AstroViking]

That's a great image, Alex. I can't wait to see how it turns out with extra data in there.

Cheers,
V

[Dave882]

Nice work Alex. Yep it’s definitely a target that benefits from narrow(er) band data. You’ve got some great detail in there for only 1.5hrs. Well done!

[AdamJL]

Well done, Alex. This is a surprisingly difficult object to do well. It really does require many many hours of integration time to really pop. You're well on your way.

(p.s. don't apologise for posting images of popular targets.. they're popular for a reason ;))

[Startrek]

Alex,
That’s a fine Helix exposing the eyebrow and colour is excellent
Don’t be afraid to sharpen the iris a bit, there’s some unique detail to be exposed
Well done indeed !
Martin

[Doogs38]

Steve, Dave, Adam and Martin - thanks for the encouragement :-) Some of this was an experiment with histograms, curves and colour balance within Photoshop. It’s also gave me a desire to get a high quality dual narrowband filter … more money lol.