Narrowband Helix Nebula
16-Aug-2016
I've already done the Helix Nebula in natural colour, so I've imaged it again in narrowband. Lots of H-alpha and Oxygen-III, but barely any Sulfur-II.
Image:
- 34x 1200s H-alpha bin1x1 + 20 flat + 50x dark + 120x bias
- 33x 1200s SII bin1x1 + 12 flat + 50x dark + 120x bias
- 17x 1200s OIII bin1x1 + 12 flat + 50x dark + 120x bias
Total exposure 28 hours.
Hardware:
- Skywatcher Black Diamond ED120
- SkyWatcher EQ8 Pro Mount
- QSI 683-ws8 Camera @ -15°C
- Astronomik 6nm Ha, 6nm OIII, 6nm SII filters
- Starlight Xpress Lodestar X2 Autoguider
- Innovations Foresight On Axis Guider
- Starlight Instruments Focus Boss II
Location:
- Orange zone in Brisbane, Australia. (Bortle 7)
- Imaged over 4 nights.
Software:
- Planning & camera alignment with Aladin 9
- Captured with AstroArt 6
- Guiding with PHD2 + PHD_Dither
- FocusLock live focusing
- CCDInspector: Image analysis & rejection
- CCDStack 2+: Calibrate, align, stack.
- Photoshop CC: Noise reduction, shadows/highlights, high pass filter, levels, curves, combine as HSO, color balance, saturation, rotation.