NGC 7293 ...The Helix (Finished...for now!) (John Hayes)

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

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NGC 7293 ...The Helix (Finished...for now!)

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NGC 7293 ...The Helix (Finished...for now!)

At only 700 ly, the Helix nebula is among the closest planetary nebula from Earth. It contains an interesting feature sometimes called tadpoles. These knots are radially symmetric from the center and are described as "cometary." Each contains bright cusps (local photoionization fronts) and tails. Excluding the tails, they are roughly the size of the Solar system. It is estimated that there are around 20,000 cometary knots in the Helix Nebula.

From Oregon the Helix never gets very high in the sky and I only get a short window each year to give it a try. I started out with the scope pointed only about 12 degrees above the horizon shooting through an airmass of more than 10. The seeing was terrible and the view is over an airplane factory with heat from the day boiling off the roof, which makes things even worse. The image was boiling so much that it was even hard to focus! Undaunted, I let it run and gathered a little over two hours worth of data before the Helix disappeared in the dome of lights low on the southern horizon. I almost got distracted and lost interest but I finally had time to add another 3-hrs of data to my first image (which I've taken down) ...and it was worth it! To me, this image looks considerably more detailed and a bit cleaner. If you look very closely, you can even pick out a few tadpoles in this data. Lesson: Never surrender, never give up! C&C always welcome.

John

PS It always takes me a day to see the problems. This latest rev fixes the choppy background which I didn't spot until I looked at the screen in low light (like at night!) Hopefully, this one looks a lot smoother.

Original
B
C
Final
D

Cloudy Nights

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The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	3420860
PixInsight job	A2COUZQOIZGCRHIGLUE1RDUDACYJT2ZB
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

RA (center)	22h29m40s.796
RA (top/left)	22h30m43s.620
RA (top/right)	22h30m33s.788
RA (bottom/right)	22h28m37s.644
RA (bottom/left)	22h28m47s.745

Dec (center)	-20°50′05″.15
Dec (top/left)	-20°30′51″.20
Dec (top/right)	-21°10′48″.100
Dec (bottom/right)	-21°09′16″.66
Dec (bottom/left)	-20°29′15″.85

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NGC 7293 ...The Helix (Finished...for now!)

NGC 7293 ...The Helix (Finished...for now!)

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NGC 7293 ...The Helix (Finished...for now!)

NGC 7293 ...The Helix (Finished...for now!)

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