Helix Nebula in Narrowband
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| Photographer | Wes Stauffer |
| Optics | A&M RC 400 IM-T |
| Mount | Paramount ME |
| Guiding | SBIG ST 402 through MMOAG with ProTrack engaged |
| Camera | Apogee U16M at -20C |
| Filters | Astrodon 5nm Ha and 3nm OIII |
| Dates/Times | September 18 - 28, 2008 |
| Location | Tiburon, CA |
| Exposure Details | 160 minutes Ha and 145 minutes OIII |
| Acquisition | CCDSoft 5 and The Sky 6 Controlled via CCDAutopilot 4 |
| Processing | CCDStack, Photoshop CS3 |
| Notes | When we trimmed one of the large pine trees
in our yard in Northern California this summer the Helix finally became
a target but its availability was limited to 1 hour each night as it
moved between the tree tops. I used very short (for narrowband) subs of 5 minutes each to handle the few minutes in each 1 hour session that I would lose the guide star to a stray branch. The Ha channel is mapped to Red and OIII is mapped to both Blue and Green. I attempted to match the palette used by the Hubble team with their Helix version from 2003.  |
