Helix crossroads advice please

[MattJenko]

Hi All,

I am attempting to do as deep (well deep for me) an image as I can of the Helix nebula. It is a tricky little object it seems and I have had a few sessions on it now. Below is my current state and I am at a bit of a crossroads. I can see a fainter outer halo beginning to appear and I have done a couple of Ha shots which also seem to show hints of an outer halo the other side as well (which are not incorporated into the image below in any form yet). Here comes the crossroads.

I currently have taken 20 x 10min Lum already. I could keep going with that with diminishing returns, but there is much more exposure time I could go for in terms of individual subs, as the background + nebula of the 10 min ones are far from saturation. This may mean discarding all 20 current Lum subs? Also, I could go much further with the narrowband approach as that too is far from saturation, but at 20 minutes Ha subs already, I would be pushing my rig beyond where it has been and would be asking fate to repeatedly slap me in the face.

What would you more experienced imagers do next to take this forward if you were in this position? 

Thanks as always

Matt

[daz]

Matt

What's the make up of this image, and on which equipment?

[MattJenko]

Sorry, should have said. Skywatcher ED80, HEQ5, Atik 414ex, Baader filters.

I used PixInsight to combine the RGB, did a DBE/ColourCalibration/Stretch and then L : DBE/Stretch and then combined using LRGBCombination. It has then been basically tweaked using HDR and Curves and TGVDenoise to show what I have.

[ollypenrice]

The faint stuff is mostly Ha. Go for it! Longer, more... the usual story. There's lots of it on both sides.

This must be a tree skimmer for you!

Olly

[MattJenko]

Ha it is then - thanks!

Tree skimming is rather accurate. It is just too tempting to let slip past though!