Thor's Helmet (NGC2359)

[joshman]

Thor's Helmet is another target that I've been itching to get back to image. It was the last target i Imaged at the end of 2019, when I went on hiatus, due to life/weather/work reasons.

This is just under 3 hours of Ha and just under 4 hours of OIII, combined with RGB stars. Full Equipment and Integration time is on the Astrobin Page. (https://www.astrobin.com/gmttjv/C/)

I processed the stars separately, and used Pixel math on the Narrowband channels, for a HOO mix. The severe lack of clear skits this summer has felt incredibly limiting, So while I would love to collect more data on this object (including SII data), I think that's where I'll leave this guy for now, at least until I have some more clear nights up my sleeve.

I've also included a closeup of my previous attempt from 2019. I wish i could tell you how much integration time went into that...

As always, C&C is very welcome.

Enjoy, Thanks for looking and Clear Skies!

[Ryderscope]

Very nice work Josh and the additional signal on display from the previous version really jumps out in the image. Scanning through the wider field on Astrobin, it seems that there is some very faint Ha signal in the background across the whole field which is interesting. I shall be looking for that when I get on to imaging this field.

[joshman]

Thank Rodney. I was hoping that there would be a nice Ha field behind the main nebula, and I wasn't too disappointed. I would really like to put a lot more time into capturing it, and the OIII as well. As you can see from the attached over-stretched Ha, there is some complexity in the background, and even a little PN bubble.



Ignore that prominent arc though, I believe that's an issue with my flats that i still haven't found an answer for... or some off-axis light from Sirius... Probably the Sirius thing.

[strongmanmike]

Yeah, lots of nebulosity there Josh, great stuff :thumbsup:

MIke

[Dave882]

Wow that’s really deep! Great work mate!!
The difficulty here i guess is that the strong Oiii signal can really swamp all the Ha detail. The wider view with that Ha field is really interesting

[joshman]

Thanks Mike. I'd love for the skies to play ball, so i could pump a lot more hours into this target. but i guess it's just not meant to be.




Thanks Dave! The f/5 of the Tak is really helping here. With the limited amount of sky time I'm getting at the moment, I'm not sure I could've achieve this. I really want to put more time into this to go extra deep on the background.