Helix Nebula - NGC 7293

[cwjames]

Hi All,

There was a break in the clouds last night, so Rosalie and I braved the minus four degrees and went to Golden Grove.

I was able to add another 10 x 600 second images to my NGC 7293 image. My 20D has not had the internal filter removed, so I am having a hard time collecting those red photons.

The image has a way to go yet, but this is the first time I have used images from mutiple evenings to make up the image.

http://www.cwjames.info/astro/gallery/nebula/nebula-011.php

Thanks for looking !

Chris

[renormalised]

Not bad, Chris:)

Reds came through OK, but if you modded your camera, it would be better.

[AlexN]

how did you go adding multiple nights data to one image? I've often wondered how this is done...

The image looks well on its way... As you say, the red hues are a bit flat due to the cameras filter, but aside from that it all looks sweet to me :)

Keep adding data to it... wonder how it would look after 36hrs of data :D

[peeb61]

Great image Chris,
I'm just starting to dream about imaging like this and slowly its turning into reality. keep building on it as its making my fingers and feet itch!

Paul

[cwjames]

Hi Alex,

Each nights session of images where stacked with Deepsky Stacker and processed in the normal way. Then I took the two resulting images and averaged them together in Photoshop. Because the FOV or framing was NOT the same over the two nights, I had to manually align the two images in each of the two layers. The image is still not right, but its a lot better than it was.

Thanks
Chris

[leon]

Chris, I love this object that you have captured, it is one of my next targets.

May I be so bold as to suggest that your image would look better not being so heavily cropped.

Helix, just floating around in space, is very appealing.

Leon

[cwjames]

Hi Leon,

No problems, only one problem I have not cropped this image at all. It's straight from the 20D on the LX200R. I guess I could try adding a focal reducer to increase the field of view. There seem to be quite a few objects where the extra field of view improves the imagine by putting it into perspective with the surrounding sky !

Adding the FOV setting to Stary Night gives you some idea of the FOV verses the target image.

Still lots to learn !

Thanks for your comments

Chris