Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Aquarius (Aqr)  ·  Contains:  Helix Nebula  ·  NGC 7293
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The Helix Nebula (NGC7293), Frederick Steiling
The Helix Nebula (NGC7293)
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Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
The Helix Nebula (NGC7293), Frederick Steiling
The Helix Nebula (NGC7293)
Powered byPixInsight

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Description

Planetary Nebulae are truly breathtaking objects, and its a shame more don't sit as closely as the Helix.  At a mere 650 light years away, it offers an amazing glimpse into the violent ejection of gasses from the outer shell of a dying star.  Beyond these surface emissions sits an even neater characteristic - cometary knots!  The Helix Nebula offers an amazing look at these puzzling and mysterious tubes of gasses, best seen here spreading radially in the outer edges of the Oxygen (blue) concentration of emissions.

I'm happy to be finally clawing through a huge amount of sky data I took in New Mexico a few years ago.  This is my first multi-channel narrowband process, where I've also included RGB true-color stars.  I'm happy to have taken quite a bit of narrowband data across numerous objects while in New Mexico, and am excited to continue to work through it carefully.  There's so much detail to enjoy!

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The Helix Nebula (NGC7293), Frederick Steiling