NGC 7293, Helix Nebula, 5 Sep 2012 (David Dearden)

Celestial hemisphere: Southern · Constellation: Aquarius (Aqr) · Contains: Helix nebula · NGC 7293 · PK036-57.1

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NGC 7293, Helix Nebula, 5 Sep 2012

As before, the best way to find the Helix with the AT8IN for me has been to use the Telrad to match the asterism forming a rough parallelogram, then put an eyepiece in. It is just barely discernable from the sky glow (and I have some tonight as the Moon is about to rise). I'm balanced a lot better than I was for my earlier target tonight (M2) and as a result my guiding looks better. High RA-only dither. CCD at 9 °C to start. Nasty clouds arrived around midnight really messing up this session. I need more time on this target, with a dark sky. The good news is that the dust-bunny-on-the-imager issue I had on 24 Aug is solved, and guiding and dithering are better, so eventually I’m going to get a good image of this. In a few days there will be less Moon and the forecast looks better.

Date: 5 Sep 2012

Subject: NGC 7293, Helix Nebula

Scope: AT8IN

Filter: None

Mount: CG-5 (Synta motors)

Guiding: Orion ST80 + 0.5x Antares telereducer + DSI Ic + PHD

Camera: DSI IIc (cooled at 2 A, 7.5 V, 13 °C)

Acquisition: Nebulosity 3.1.0, high dither

Exposure: 13 x 300 s

Stacking: Neb 3, bias included, normalize first, trans+rot align, 1.5 SD stack

Processing: Digital development with moderate sharpening, Keller stretch, power stretch, saturation boost, star reduction in Neb 3; CS6 Astronomy Tools star color enhance, enhance DSO/reduce stars, deep space, space noise reduction, liberal use of healing brush to remove some noise especially at the top of the image, some levels.

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	278942
PixInsight job	PULCALB3V03G179ZOWCYOSBMFTH4TUTY
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

RA (center)	22h29m34s.61
RA (top/left)	22h28m35s.40
RA (top/right)	22h30m31s.29
RA (bottom/right)	22h30m33s.64
RA (bottom/left)	22h28m38s.10

Dec (center)	-20°49′13″.6
Dec (top/left)	-21°00′12″.1
Dec (top/right)	-21°00′52″.5
Dec (bottom/right)	-20°38′14″.4
Dec (bottom/left)	-20°37′33″.4

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NGC 7293, Helix Nebula, 5 Sep 2012

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