Here’s the Helix Nebula (NGC7293), aka the Eye of God or the Eye of Sauron for Lord of the Rings Fans.  This planetary nebula is located in the constellation Aquarius and is at a distance of ~655 light years from the Earth, with a diameter of ~5.74 light years.

So what is a planetary nebula?  Planetary nebula are formed when an intermediate to low-mass star sheds its outer layers near the end of its life (after the star consumes its fuel).  The remnants of the star are destined to become a white dwarf.  I found an excellent description of a this planetary nebula at the following site:

https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/helix-nebula-unraveling-seams/

These pictures were shot with the ZWO Dual Narrowband filter which is great for heavy light pollution areas (like mine), bright moonlight, and allows light transmission in two main frequency regions:
1.     Hydrogen Alpha (Ha) (red) at 656.3 nm with a bandwidth of 15nm
2.     Oxygen III (Oiii) (blue) at 500.7 nm with a bandwidth of 35nm

This image was processed in three different color formats using my one shot color camera (OSC). 

The first two were processed last summer creating a Foraxx and HOO (Stars over New Jersey formula) to create the image.  The Foraxx color scheme creates a blending of the Blue and Greem channels of the RGB spectrum based on a combination of the brightest and darkest areas of the two channels.  This often results in more “bronze-colour images”, and was developed by “The Coldest Nights”, and I learned about it through many videos and the tools developed by Paulyman Astro.  The HOO version (Hydrogen alpha Oxygen III Oxygen III) has a different formula to accentuate the blue/green, making it more teal.

The last image (SHO) was created this weekend using an updated processing flow with the improved AI for BlurXterminator, and improved processing to enhance the individual colors and sharpening.  The SHO (Sulfur II (in the R channel), Hydrogen Alpha (in the G channel), Oxygen III (in the B channel) version was created using Bill Blanshan’s Narrowband Normalization tool.

These images that make up this picture were collected on August 25th, 2022. The moon was a Waning Crescent with 3.29% light.

• My setup:·
• Mount: EQ6R-Pro·
• Telescope: Williams Optics 81 mm Zenithstar doublet·
• ZWO-ASI224MC color camera for guiding with the Zenithstar guide·
• Hotech Corporation 2” Field Flattener·
• ZWO ASI2600MC Pro; Camera cooled to -10 deg C, with ZWO IDAZ Duo-Band Narrowband Light Pollution Reduction Filter·
• Bortle-9 – South Los Angeles shot from my backyard·
• Integration Time: 3 Hours 30 Minutes; Lights (75 @ 180 seconds); Darks (30 @ 180 seconds); Flats (30) & Bias (30)·
• Image Processing: Pixinsight – @Cosgrove’sCosmos (Thank you for your recent feedback in my image processing), @ViewintoSpace, @EnteringintoSpace, @Lukomatico – Lots of great on-line teachers/examples.·        Incorporated Russell Croman’s amazing products (Blur (with the new AI 4 update), Noise, and Star Xterminators)