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Description

The Helix Nebula, commonly referred to by many as "The Eye of God", is a planetary nebula located in the constellation of Aquarius. I have photographed this object last year from a dark sky site. However, I recently had an opportunity to shoot this again from home using a different telescope at a higher focal length. The additional exposures were done using narrowband filters, as I live in a light polluted area. The narrowband image had better detail, but lacked the natural colours which can only be obtained from a dark sky site. Using a workflow in PixInsight for compositing true colour and narrowband, this is the resulting image which I would say is an improved version compared to the previous given the additional resolution.

Acquisition Information:
Telescope: Astro-Physics AP130GTX at f/4.5, Takahashi FSQ85ED at f/5.3
Camera: SBIG ST8300M, Baader HaLRGB filters
Mount: Losmandy G11/G2
Integration: 4.5 hours HaLRGB

Description

The Helix Nebula, commonly referred to by many as "The Eye of God", is a planetary nebula located in the constellation of Aquarius. I have photographed this object last year from a dark sky site. However, I recently had an opportunity to shoot this again from home using a different telescope at a higher focal length. The additional exposures were done using narrowband filters, as I live in a light polluted area. The narrowband image had better detail, but lacked the natural colours which can only be obtained from a dark sky site. Using a workflow in PixInsight for compositing true colour and narrowband, this is the resulting image which I would say is an improved version compared to the previous given the additional resolution.

Acquisition Information:
Telescope: Astro-Physics AP130GTX at f/4.5, Takahashi FSQ85ED at f/5.3
Camera: SBIG ST8300M, Baader HaLRGB filters
Mount: Losmandy G11/G2
Integration: 4.5 hours HaLRGB