NGC 7293 - The Helix Nebula (aka: The Eye of God) (Steven E Labkoff, MD)

NGC 7293 - The Helix Nebula (aka: The Eye of God)

The Helix Nebula - NGC 7293 - aka: The Eye of God Nebula
Clear skies this past Friday night... Back to Astro!
This is the 4th or 5th time I've shot the Helix. This is one of the larger and brighter planetary nebulas. Located in Aquarius, this deep space object is located (this month) close to Jupiter in the southern sky about 9:30 PM and onward. This represents 111 minutes of integration. I may add this data to previous shoots as this was done with a narrowband filter - thus I got better details in the reds. This was the first time I've used my astrocamera in a very long time. I used it so I could get the additional "crop factor" benefit on the images - making the target of the Helix about 2.7x larger than it would have appeared on my Nikon gear. This trick helps to stretch the value of my scope - but as you use the cropped sensor, you don't get any true gain in magnification - but it does appear to gain roughly 2.7x magnification - to take my 505mm FL all the way up to 1364 mm in FL.
This shot was made on Friday night, 9/10/2021
Date: 9/10/2021
Location: Westport Astronomical Society
My own gear
Lights: 37 @ 180s each, Unity Gain, Cooled sensor to -10C
Darks: 30
Flats : 30
Dark Flats: 30
Bias: 135
Telescope: 92mm APO Astrotech Refractor
Modifiers: Field Flattener only - Total focal length 505mm
Filter: STC Narrowband Ha/Oiii
Guide Scope: 60mm Astromania
Camera: ZWO ASI 183mcPRO (color astrocamera)
Guide Camera: ZWO 120mini
Guiding software: PHD2
Acquisition Softwawe: AstroImager
Integration Software: PixInsight v1.8. 8.9
Mount: Celestron AVX

Original
Final
B

B

Description: The Helix Nebula - NGC 7293 - the Eye of God

This is a "remix" of the identical data that I ran on 9/10/2021. Stuart Stakoff suggested using a new segment of PixInsight, the HDRMultiscale Process on this target. When I did that on the "stretched" image, a TON more detail came out. I'll post the identical image pre-HDRMultiScale Process and the previously run version of the same data. This is pretty amazing detail for Westport CT.

Date of Acquisition: 9/10/2021
Location: Westport, CT

Lights: 37 @ 180s, Gain 111, Sensor Temp: -10C
Flats: 30
Darks: 30
Dark Flats: 30
Bias: 135 - but apparently not used in this process

Scope: Astrotech 92mm APO Refractor
Filter: STC Dual Narrowband Ha/Oiii
Imaging Camera: ZWO ASI 183mcPRO
Guiding Camera: ZWO ASI 120mini
Guide scope: 60mm Astromania refractor
Acquisition Software: AstroImager
Guiding Software: PHD2
Image Integration Software: PixInsight
Finishing Software: Photoshop
Mount: Celstron AVX

Image 1 - REDO, Image 2 - Original processing - both of these images were made from the identical data set. Makes me think about going back to older data sets to try again...

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	5094888
PixInsight job	2JC06UZ040SYDRR3UE56TJZXZSEUZA08
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	22h29m43s.807
RA (top/left)	22h26m37s.455
RA (top/right)	22h32m58s.800
RA (bottom/right)	22h32m48s.671
RA (bottom/left)	22h26m30s.667

Dec (center)	-20°53′32″.10
Dec (top/left)	-21°24′27″.27
Dec (top/right)	-21°21′40″.32
Dec (bottom/right)	-20°22′26″.27
Dec (bottom/left)	-20°25′10″.58

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