Helix Nebula 81.75 hours

[Slawomir (Suavi)]

A wonderful result - it is truly a quality image Paul. Apart from the amazingly captured nebula itself, I also like the RGB stars.

Although as you have hinted you don't expect drastic improvements with more data, every extra few hours mean stepping into pretty much unchartered territory, and that must be worth all the effort you put into this project so far

[Bassnut (Fred)]

Extremely deep Paul, most impressive. Megadata is the last mile, and youve nailed it.

[Andy01 (Andy)]

Go on, make an even 100 hrs, you know you want too ...

Awesome stuff!

[astronobob (Bob)]

An excellent target to go Deeeep on Paul, youd have to be one of the best Astro-Imagers in Aus man, honestly !! & I really like the colour in this too, Its 'On Fire' so to speak !
Definitely a big credit for your dedication - also watching on for the final when it happens

[allan gould]

Paul
Impressive image and you really have captured the outer material as well as the faint background galaxies, but I have a problem. Looking at Peter_4059's image of the helix, although it doesn't have the depth of your it has one feature that is missing from yours.
Look here http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/s...ighlight=Helix
And within the Helix itself I see a miriad of faint stars in the 6 hr exposure that are missing from your image.
Is this because a lot of NB data to bring out the outer halo has led to the demise of these stars?
Anyway an interesting observation
Allan

[Paul Haese]

Thanks Troy for your comment.

Originally Posted by John K

Outstanding Paul,

Looks like automation as you have said is allowing you to capture heaps of data, but I would say technique, processing and equipment refining with your GSO RC scope has also meant you are getting max results vs effort.

Great work.

John K.

Thanks John, but this image is taken with my other system; the FSQ. I wish I could take an image of this field of view with the RC but I would need a much larger sensor and maybe a reducer too. Thanks for the compliment though.

Originally Posted by Slawomir

A wonderful result - it is truly a quality image Paul. Apart from the amazingly captured nebula itself, I also like the RGB stars.

Although as you have hinted you don't expect drastic improvements with more data, every extra few hours mean stepping into pretty much unchartered territory, and that must be worth all the effort you put into this project so far

Thanks Slawomir, I hope you are right about going deeper.

Originally Posted by Bassnut

Extremely deep Paul, most impressive. Megadata is the last mile, and youve nailed it.

Thanks Fred. Mega data always seems to mean mega wait though as you well know. Takes a lot of patience, probably more than I possess.

Originally Posted by Andy01

Go on, make an even 100 hrs, you know you want too ...

Awesome stuff!

Thanks Andy, already approaching the big 100 hours of useable data. I think there is only another 5 or so hours now and I will hit the milestone. I won't repost until I have gone as far as I can and with a lovely smooth back ground. So it might be some time yet.

Originally Posted by astronobob

An excellent target to go Deeeep on Paul, youd have to be one of the best Astro-Imagers in Aus man, honestly !! & I really like the colour in this too, Its 'On Fire' so to speak !
Definitely a big credit for your dedication - also watching on for the final when it happens

Wow thanks very much Bob. A huge compliment but there are quite a few here that produce excellent results too. Not to mention those that don't post on forums. Nice of you to say so though.

Originally Posted by allan gould

Paul
Impressive image and you really have captured the outer material as well as the faint background galaxies, but I have a problem. Looking at Peter_4059's image of the helix, although it doesn't have the depth of your it has one feature that is missing from yours.
Look here http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/s...ighlight=Helix
And within the Helix itself I see a miriad of faint stars in the 6 hr exposure that are missing from your image.
Is this because a lot of NB data to bring out the outer halo has led to the demise of these stars?
Anyway an interesting observation
Allan

Thanks Allan. I take it you are referring to the galaxy seen within one of the wing arms? Peter's image is an LRGB so it is more evident than in my image. It is certainly there but quite faint and over whelmed by the NB data. On the straight RGB data set it is well seen and similar to Peters image. I could mask it in and perhaps when I do the final image I will do just that.

The stars in the core I suspect are the same. My RGB data I do a wash over the NB data with lighten mode or soft light. It gives the colour but there is some loss in density of data using this method but it does avoid the black rings and other horrid artefacts that come with NB and RGB blending.

[AG Hybrid (Adrian)]

Only another 600 hours of exposure to go and the rest of the face will be visible.

[rogerg (Roger)]

Originally Posted by Paul Haese

this is an image I am sort of comfortable with.

oh c'mon, give yourself a break !!! It's absolutely awesome!

I really must find myself a half decent OTA and get some nice pretty images like this

[graham.hobart (Graham stevens)]

That, Paul , is outstanding!. I never knew it could be so 'solid' looking in the Ha. Marvellous stuff.
Quick send it to the GSO people!!
cheers
Graz

[Paul Haese]

Originally Posted by AG Hybrid

Only another 600 hours of exposure to go and the rest of the face will be visible.

Thanks Adrian. Looking forward to the extra 600 hours.

Originally Posted by rogerg

oh c'mon, give yourself a break !!! It's absolutely awesome!

I really must find myself a half decent OTA and get some nice pretty images like this

Thanks Roger. Yeah I know I am a tough task master. Just my obsessive nature to aim higher all the time.

Originally Posted by graham.hobart

That, Paul , is outstanding!. I never knew it could be so 'solid' looking in the Ha. Marvellous stuff.
Quick send it to the GSO people!!
cheers
Graz

Thanks Graham, I found that very interesting too about the Ha looking more solid as time went on. It seemed to develop more and more all the time. Each 4 hours I put in now, another area seems to thicken up just a little. I doubt that anyone will go past my integration time for some time yet, but I would be interested to see someone do that, just for comparison sake alone.

I am not sure GSO will understand getting an FSQ image. I do send them the occasional GSO image though.

[graham.hobart (Graham stevens)]

oops! sorry-only looked at the IIS shot as at work!
Doh!

[SkyViking (Rolf)]

Awesome work Paul, that's a serious Helix for sure. The depth and colour is really great and it seems you've picked up every faint extension there might possibly be!

Re processing you shouldn't have to throw away data due to startrails, both Maxim and PixInsight can handle such outliers in the data, so maybe you can use even more of your data
What's the FOV of your GSO setup? Could you get higher S/N with a 2 panel mosaic of 50 hours each using the GSO, rather than 100 hours with the FSQ?

Thanks for the view, now I'm inspired to play with some measly 16 hours of Helix data from last year which I never got around to process.

[andyc (Andy)]

Really impressive image Paul. Can't really add any more except that it was a real pleasure to explore the higher res version

[Ryderscope (Rodney)]

Simply amazing.

[DJT (David)]

Congrats Paul, that's an awesome image which just shows the effort you have gone to ensure you are able to grab consistently high quality subs time after time.

Great result

[marc4darkskies (Marcus)]

Yeah that's a great image Paul! Colours & depth excellent!

[Paul Haese]

Thanks Andy, Rodney, David and Marcus for your comments. Much appreciated.

Originally Posted by SkyViking

Awesome work Paul, that's a serious Helix for sure. The depth and colour is really great and it seems you've picked up every faint extension there might possibly be!

Re processing you shouldn't have to throw away data due to startrails, both Maxim and PixInsight can handle such outliers in the data, so maybe you can use even more of your data
What's the FOV of your GSO setup? Could you get higher S/N with a 2 panel mosaic of 50 hours each using the GSO, rather than 100 hours with the FSQ?

Thanks for the view, now I'm inspired to play with some measly 16 hours of Helix data from last year which I never got around to process.

Thanks Rolf. I think there is a bit more of the extension to be seen yet. Recent data acquisition is allowing further stretching and there appears to be more bubbles, though very faint.

I am aware of Maxim being able to handle such things. Do you mean satellite trails not star trails? I don't get trailed stars unless I lose guiding but I always reject those subs due to inconsistent illumination, and the trailed stars. Satellite trails are generally ok but I reject them when there are 3 or 4 and cannot be bothered using them. I prefer to keep subs that are higher quality overall. Just a choice I suppose and I can afford to gather more data with a remote imaging. NB data around full moon is no good either and this was the main amount of data rejected, (probably around 21 hours or so).

The GSO can cover the main part of the nebula (34 x 51 arc minutes) but cannot capture the entire field of view. Doing a mosaic would be an interesting exercise and one that I might do in years to come. I suppose this was more an exercise in what might actually be possible with this tiny little scope.

[dylan_odonnell (Dylan)]

So incredibly good. You really set the benchmark Paul!

[h0ughy (David)]

spectacular result

[Paul Haese]

Originally Posted by dylan_odonnell

So incredibly good. You really set the benchmark Paul!

Hmmm maybe but I know of one or two that I think are a lot better. Thanks all the same.

Originally Posted by h0ughy

spectacular result

Thanks David.