Helix Nebula

This beautiful large planetary nebula is located in the constellation Aquarius. The Helix Nebula is approximately 695 light years from Earth, and presents a fairly large target, almost one-half the diameter of the moon.

 

My intent was to merge both traditional RGB and Narrowband into a hybrid image using 6 filters to reveal three things. The first included the amazing cometary knots extending away from the central star in a radial direction. Their scale is simply amazing as most are believed to be about the size of our solar system.

 

The second stems from my fascination of galaxies. I wanted to reveal the many galaxies located both within the core and throughout the outer halo extending away from the Planetary Nebula.

 

The final goal was to retain the lovely teal colour of the core and reveal the beautiful colours in the stars surrounding NGC 7293 including the bluish central star. The rare teal colour found in planetary nebula can often be removed during imaging processing.

 

The total time for this image is around 64 hours.

 

Instruments:

10 Inch RCOS fl 9.1

Astro Physics AP-900 Mount

SBIG STL 11000m

FLI Filter Wheel

Astrodon Lum, Red, Green, Blue Filters

Baader Planetarium H-alpha and OIII Narrowband-Filters

 

Thanks for looking.

Done