NGC 7293 - The Helix Nebula

[Buzzard75]

It's pretty noisy, but this was only intended to be a test. I've been toying with the idea of getting a Ritchey-Chretien telescope to compliment my shorter focal length WO Redcat. A fellow member of our club happened to have a 6" that he doesn't use very often and offered to let me borrow it. I was worried at that focal length I would need to guide in order to get round stars. I was pleasantly surprised to find that at an exposure of 120s, I didn't need guiding at all on the iOptron CEM40EC. I ended up with fairly round stars. I only managed to capture about an hours worth of data in RGB. Shooting from Bortle 5-6 with some haze rolling in late last night added to the noise. Still, I think I know what my next scope purchase will be now, rather than a larger refractor.

ZWO ASI183MM Pro
Baader RGB 1.25" filters
.75x reducer
TPO 6" Ritchey-Chretien
iOptron CEM40EC
9x120s exposures each RGB, Unity gain, unguided

Processed in PixInsight with touchups in Photoshop

 

Edited October 19, 2019 by Buzzard75

[Demonperformer]

Nice test shot.

Is it just my screen, or do the stars on the left hand side of the pic have a ghostly on their right side?

I would love to be able to get a decent shot of this one!

[Buzzard75]

13 hours ago, Demonperformer said:

Nice test shot.

Is it just my screen, or do the stars on the left hand side of the pic have a ghostly on their right side?

I would love to be able to get a decent shot of this one!

There may be a couple of reasons for this. First, all I had for collimation was a Cheshire eyepiece and my standard laser collimator that I use for my dob. I did the best I could, but I know it could certainly be better. I didn't even attempt to touch the primary mirror, as it's not my scope and I didn't want to mess it up. I also have no way of collimating the focuser. I only used the laser collimator to see if the focuser was at all closely aligned. I was surprised to see that it was. I didn't actually make any adjustments using the information from the laser because, as I said, I had no way to adjust the focuser and that's about all it was good for.

The other possible reason may be due to the fact that I used a reducer in the imaging train. It probably introduced a bit of field curvature. I agree, it appears to be a bit more noticeable on the left hand side though, which may suggest that my collimation is in fact off. Next time I have more time to produce a better image, I'll go without the reducer and see if that helps at all.

Should I decide to buy an RC for myself, I would definitely invest in a Glatter collimation laser and a focuser adapter ring that allows you to adjust and collimate the focuser with the secondary mirror.

[MarsG76]

Good Work, this reminds me of how my Helix turned out before I used narrowband on it... I find that capturing Halpha and OIII data brings out a lot more of the outer faint matter that seems to be elusive from light polluted skies.

[Buzzard75]

16 hours ago, MarsG76 said:

Good Work, this reminds me of how my Helix turned out before I used narrowband on it... I find that capturing Halpha and OIII data brings out a lot more of the outer faint matter that seems to be elusive from light polluted skies.

 

On 20/10/2019 at 01:04, Demonperformer said:

Nice test shot.

Is it just my screen, or do the stars on the left hand side of the pic have a ghostly on their right side?

I would love to be able to get a decent shot of this one!

I did some more work on it and restacked the data. I had apparently include one or two 'bad' frames that I probably shouldn't have. I think this one is significantly cleaner and more detailed.