In June to August this year, I had the good fortune to capture a full set of broadband and narrowband data for the iconic Helix nebula. 

I wanted to start off with an LRGB image, because the nebula is at a Dec of -20 deg versus my Latitude of 33 deg South, so it gets to practically overhead for me at its zenith. That in combination with the Bortle 2 skies at my location has allowed me to produce a colour image with a high Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR). Before getting onto narrowband, or narrowband enhanced RGB I thought I would start off with LRGB. On my, albeit cursory, look on AstroBin I didn't find a single straight LRGB image. Of course, imagers use enhancement to bring more punch to their images of this object and without that, the natural colour image may seem to pale in comparison. Nevertheless, I thought you might appreciate seeing this marvellous Planetary Nebula in natural colour.

“The Helix Nebula (also known as NGC 7293 or Caldwell 63) is a planetary nebula (PN) located in the constellation Aquarius. Discovered by Karl Ludwig Harding, most likely before 1824, this object is one of the closest of all the bright planetary nebulae to Earth. The distance, measured by the Gaia mission, is 655±13 light-years.The Helix Nebula is an example of a planetary nebula, formed by an intermediate to low-mass star, which sheds its outer layers near the end of its evolution. Gases from the star in the surrounding space appear, from our vantage point, as if we are looking down a helix structure. The remnant central stellar core, known as the central star (CS) of the planetary nebula, is destined to become a white dwarf star. The observed glow of the central star is so energetic that it causes the previously expelled gases to brightly fluoresce.The nebula is in the constellation of Aquarius, and lies about 650 light-years away, spanning about 0.8 parsecs (2.5 light-years). Its age is estimated to be 10600 +2300/−1200 years, based on the ratio of its size to its measured expansion rate of 31 km/s.The Helix Nebula is thought to be shaped like a prolate spheroid with strong density concentrations toward the filled disk along the equatorial plane, whose major axis is inclined about 21° to 37° from our vantage point. The size of the inner disk is 8×19 arcmin in diameter (0.52 pc); the outer torus is 12×22 arcmin in diameter (0.77 pc); and the outer-most ring is about 25 arcmin in diameter (1.76 pc). The outer-most ring appears flattened on one side due to it colliding with the ambient interstellar medium.Expansion of the whole planetary nebula structure is estimated to have occurred in the last 6,560 years, and 12,100 years for the inner disk. Spectroscopically, the outer ring's expansion rate is 40 km/s, and about 32 km/s for the inner disk.” – Wikipedia (abridged)