Helix work in Progress

[SB]

Hi Everyone,
Got another 5 hours on the Helix last night. Was lucky as the cloud band was running NW just south of Lake Macquarie giving an unexpected opportunity of a clear sky!

This is a work in progress project (inspired from some other posts)

23 Hours narrow band with 3 Hours RGB. 5 hours SII the rest split between OIII and Ha. The SII is very faint but it's there.

Antlia 3.5nm filters, Esprit 100, ASI 183 MC and 183 Mono.

SB

[SB]

Hi everyone here is an updated image with 3 hours additional Ha data.

SB

[Nikolas]

it's coming along nicely, such a difficult target that requires hours and hours of data in order to get those faint areas.

[Dave882]

Great work Chris you’ve managed to reveal some of those extremely faint outer shells. :thumbsup:

[SB]

Thanks Nik and Dave,
Comments appreciated.

Here is an update with another 3 hours of Ha. Now using HOO palate with RGB stars.

I notice that with the additional stacked subs the noise also gets stacked leading to a strong background colour cast. Background extraction works ok but I loose some detail in the process. Having only recently begun Mono imaging I was surprised by the strong colour cast for each filter. I had imagined that the background would be 'black' with only the relevant detail showing. I found it easy to remove the background with OSC. I run the camera at -10C at unity gain.

BTW the blue dots in some of the stars only showed up when I exported to jpg file to upload!

Chris

[oska]

Chris, that's coming up fantastically! What's not to love about the core and outer detail. I don't even look at the stars. Well done ;)

[Dave882]

That’s lovely mate. Really going deep with all that data well done!! It’s super smooth and lovely colour! With so much narrow band data, I reckon you can extract some of the core detail with the radial cometary knots. Try some processing variations…they’re in there somewhere I’m sure :lol:

[SB]

Thanks David,
I liked your suggestion as the Ha did show the knots and they must have got lost in the processing. You gave me an idea so this is the result.... It extracts more detail using two pixel layers and performing a background erase.

Thanks

Chris.

[Dilsh]

I found this object really really hard.

Just amazing contrast and detail. Those hours are really paying off.

Also really like the star colour.

Thanks for sharing.

Dilsh

[Dave882]

Yes to my eye that’s a great improvement in the detail well done!

[SB]

Thanks David,
I think we are doing OK with our imaging using our comparatively inexpensive kit when compared to this image of the Helix Nebula from the 2.2M Wide Field Imager (WFI), an astronomical camera attached to the 2.2-metre Max-Planck Society/ESO telescope at the La Silla observatory in Chile

See: https://www.constellation-guide.com/helix-nebula-ngc-7293-caldwell-63-in-aquarius/

https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse1.mm.bing.net%2 Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.lPQQhWk-tTYShqv2aZ4SXgHaCB%26pid%3DApi&f=1&ipt=a09e6c918c5635eb4b4701033188a2b ec5fb166766369c9cceafa1cccd7cd1af&ipo=images

Chris

[SB]

Well I think I've spent enough time on this now and will collect more data next year!

Here's the final image for this season. 23 Hours Mainly Ha with Esprit 100 and ASI 183MM. Antlia 3.5nm HO filters. This would be a good target for more aperture!

Comments welcome.

Chris.

[Nikolas]

IT's coming along
I have 12 hours of data with an OSC and mine seems to have more detail, have you tried selective stretching on the outer shells? There is more data there but you need to tease it out in the priocessing

[SB]

Thanks Nikolas,
I like your image that you posted. The colours and perspective are nice.

I'll Give you suggestion a try. It's a hard one to process.

Chris.

[Nikolas]

this is from your image stretched selectively, obviously the jpg compression didnt help but you can see how much data is available

[SB]

... that looks good. One of the things I find hard is to get rid of the background colour cast on the Ha. The stacked noise gives quite a dense orange cast. When I remove the background I loose some detail

Chis.

[Nikolas]

I use selective colour or the camera Raw in photoshop which helps, also add a layer mask and erase the highlighted areas

[SB]

Hi Nikolas.
This is what my Ha Sub looks like before recolour which when applied had a strong cast.

Chris.

[Nikolas]

Increase the contrast with a curve s adjustment to darken the background then fade to suit
what process are you using?

[SB]

Hi Nikolas,
That helped. Thanks.
There is quite a bit more noise when stretching further. I'm too am still 'Dazed and Confused' in terms of image processing! I use Affinity ( similar to Photoshop). Now to get rid of the Ha star fringing.

Comments welcome as always.

Chris.

[Nikolas]

Looks a lot better now there is more detail.
as for the colour cast a very very light levels adjustment where you take down the red channel a tad may work.

[SB]

Thanks Again Nikolas,
Here is my adjustment.

Chris.

[Nikolas]

looking good

[SB]

Hi All,
Had a go at stacking in ASTAP this time. I think it provides a little more detail. Here is the result:

Chris.