NGC 7293: The Helix Nebula (Álvaro Méndez)

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

NGC 7293: The Helix Nebula, Álvaro Méndez

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NGC 7293: The Helix Nebula

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NGC 7293: The Helix Nebula

This has been a long project for me with lots of setbacks along the way, for a whole year. I've suffered from bad guiding issues, gusts of wind, full moons, a broken mount... all this being already a difficult target because it is too low in the horizon.
Thus, this image is the result of discarding hours of data and using the best possible signal out of a myriad of exposures: 30 second exposures, 60 second exposures, 3 and 5 minute...
making a modest total of almost 9 hours of signal using a dual narrowband filter. All images taken with a broadband filter had to be discarded because they dropped the signal-to-noise ratio to the floor.

By the way, I'm proud to say that I did not use any kind of noise reduction during the whole process. I try not to use it whenever I can since I like the more photographic look that a little amount of grain yields to an image.

Since this is a project in development, I plan on capturing more data, and I will add it as luminance in the future. Also, I accept critics so I can improve it.

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Distribution of astrophotographers

This table shows the number of distinct astrophotographers who have been assigned and IOTD/TP award compared to the total number of images awarded.
	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

Distribution of subject types

This table shows the distribution of awards per subject type, compared to the popularity of images of that subject type.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

Distribution of data sources

This table shows the distribution of awards per data source, compared to the popularity of images acquired from that data source.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

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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Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

Status	Basic success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	8407465
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

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NGC 7293: The Helix Nebula

NGC 7293: The Helix Nebula

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NGC 7293: The Helix Nebula

NGC 7293: The Helix Nebula

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