Helix Nebula

[Paul Haese]

I have been working on this project for a year now. I started collecting data at Clayton Bay before I sold the property. I then accumulated some of the data at home before moving the imaging rig out to our new centre at Swan Reach Imaging.

I am pleased to say that seeing at Swan Reach continues to be very good on most nights; much of the data in the image has been collected at Swan Reach Imaging.

The image contains band passes of L Ha OIII RGB. Most of the data is the Ha and OIII to capture as much of the outer chevrons as possible. It would need another huge effort of over 100 hours to capture all I captured last time and more. I did not have that luxury this time around. Perhaps in the next apparition I can collect another 50 hours of Ha and OIII to add to it. As it is the image contains 44.7 hours of data.

One thing that is more noticeable this time around is the number of background galaxies in the image. There are many within the field of view.

Click here for the larger image.

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Very nice Helix Paul, we seem to mostly want to try and capture the faint outer wisps these days but it's always nice to see some faint fuzzies in a Helix image too.

Mike

[Peter Ward]

A benchmark Helix Paul.

I rather like how you have not let the obviously deep NB data overwhelm the image.

Beautiful and natural looking colours too. What a concept!

Good one

[multiweb (Marc)]

Real nice blend Paul. You've even got that little side on inside the neb.

[matlud (Mathew)]

Great helix Paul 👍 very nice detail on the cometary knots and I like how you have managed to keep some of the radial streaming from the OIII visible 👏

[Andy01 (Andy)]

Nice colours yes

Natural appearance yes,

High impact?
Sorry no - needs those outer chevrons to really pop imo.

Would you consider blending this data with your previous to get the best of both worlds?

Not too many imagers out there with 100+ hrs quality data on the helix like you have already, just sayin'

[AdamJL]

About as good as it gets on a fiendishly difficult target. Great work Paul!

[Rigel003 (Graeme)]

Beautiful image Paul.Beautiful colour and so smooth. Is this the first image that's at least in part from Swan Reach?

44.7 hours?! I could make jokes about diminishing returns and what you could have been doing with those 44.7 hours, but you're a remote imager, it's automated and I guess you've still had a life during those hours (at least for sleeping).

[gregbradley]

Sensational Paul.
Greg

[Paul Haese]

Thanks everyone for the comments and observations.

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

Very nice Helix Paul, we seem to mostly want to try and capture the faint outer wisps these days but it's always nice to see some faint fuzzies in a Helix image too.

Mike

Thanks Mike; Those outer chevrons are a total pain to capture but I was very keen to show the galaxies too. I think this is a more balanced view which shows everything I think.

Originally Posted by Peter Ward

A benchmark Helix Paul.

I rather like how you have not let the obviously deep NB data overwhelm the image.

Beautiful and natural looking colours too. What a concept!

Good one

Thanks Peter, balancing it all was a tough exercise. I had forgotten the sort of wrangling I had to do last time. I did not want the NB data to overwhelm the image which I sort of did last time.

Originally Posted by matlud

Great helix Paul 👍 very nice detail on the cometary knots and I like how you have managed to keep some of the radial streaming from the OIII visible 👏

Thanks, the problem of maintaining the OIII in the image can be quite difficult. I had to do quite a bit of masking to keep the streamers visible despite capturing 870 minutes worth of it.

Originally Posted by Andy01

Nice colours yes

Natural appearance yes,

High impact?
Sorry no - needs those outer chevrons to really pop imo.

Would you consider blending this data with your previous to get the best of both worlds?

Not too many imagers out there with 100+ hrs quality data on the helix like you have already, just sayin'

Thanks Andy, the data from the 111 hour run was with an FSQ106 and I think the image scale is too different to try to blend them. It's something I'll take a look at though and tinker with.

The difficulty with all this imaging caper is to remember the images are supposed to be beautiful and a representation of the science. So whilst the urge to make the outer chevrons, can be to make them really stand out, they are in fact quite faint and should really be representative of this fact. Though this is not to say the rendering I have supplied could not do with some work in chevrons. Perhaps more data collection next season will provide a brighter result.

Originally Posted by Rigel003

Beautiful image Paul.Beautiful colour and so smooth. Is this the first image that's at least in part from Swan Reach?

44.7 hours?! I could make jokes about diminishing returns and what you could have been doing with those 44.7 hours, but you're a remote imager, it's automated and I guess you've still had a life during those hours (at least for sleeping).

Hi Graeme; yes this is the first image from Swan Reach imaging.

In actuality I collected another 15 hours of data which I threw away due to wind, bad guiding and high cloud. So that may make it worse. The issue with this object is the outer chevrons present only two photons (or thereabouts) per hour so you need to collect quite a few hours to get it really bright. You can manipulate the data quite hard but this does end up with other processing issues that need to be resolved.

Yes I sleep quite well during imaging.

[atalas]

Excellent as always Paul