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NGC 7293 - The Helix Nebula in Aquarius
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Copyright 2007 Hap Griffin
The
Helix Nebula, also known as NGC 7293, lies 450 light-years away in the
constellation of Aquarius. It is a "planetary nebula" meaning
that it's round shape may at times be mistaken for a planet...actually an old
term which has less meaning in today's better equipped amateur astronomy
community than long ago when the term was coined. This class of objects is
formed when a star nears the end of its lifetime and blows away its outer layers
of material to space. In this case, the progenitor star was the same type
star as our sun. The remaining core of the star, now a "white
dwarf", can be seen directly in the center of the nebula. Several
rings of material can be seen, with the faint outer deep red northeastern arc
visible at the upper left if your monitor is adjusted correctly. The
diameter of main portion of the Helix is roughly
2.5 light years.
Date/Location:
October 6, 2007 Griffin/Hunter
Observatory Bethune, SC
Instrument: Canon 350XT Digital SLR (modified) through 10"
Orion f/4.7 Newtonian
Focal Ratio: f/4.7
Guiding: Auto via SBIG ST237 through Orion ED80
Conditions: Visually clear - seeing not steady
Weather: 70 F
Exposure: 155 minutes total (31 x 5 minutes @ ISO 800)
Filters: Baader UV/IR block in camera
Processing: Focused and captured with DSLRFocus.
RAW to TIFF conversion, auto-dark and flat frame calibration, Digital Development,
Richardson-Lucy deconvolution, resizing and JPEG conversion in ImagesPlus.
Noise reduction in Neat Image. Final tweaking in Photoshop CS2.