This has been an interesting week. After days and weeks of continuing cloudy skies we finally have a break in the forecast and not only will the skies be clear but it is a new moon so they will also be very dark. I happened to notice that the group of astrophotographers (
Overall Photons) that did the collaboration on M51 are now doing the same thing with the Helix Nebula. I've been aware of this planetary nebula for a while but I've never tried to image it because at my latitude (33-34 degrees) the highest NGC7293 gets is about 35 degrees. Typically my lowest I like to shoot is 35 degrees and last time Helix was up I was in Phoenix under Bortle 6-7 skies and all of my horizon stealing urban neighborhood things like poles, trees, homes, etc. I never gave Helix a passing thought as I did not feel I could get enough subs shooting that low. Now all of this seemed possible since I am currently up north in Overgaard where my moonless night skies are Bortle 1 or better. I did some preplanning an it looked like I should be able to get about 3 hours/night of good subs on Helix so I set out to spend the week imaging Helix and some other objects when Helix was not visible.
This is my result. My skies were crazy dark. My SQM meter read 22.2 or better every night. I managed to get 149 excellent subs and was able to get this image. I'm quite pleased with this as I may not get another chance for a while.
I also got 90% of the guiding issues with my NYX pretty much resolved. I was getting typical total RMS errors in guiding under 0.7" which is quite fine. I only had to toss a few subs and even those I probably could have kept them but decided to pick only the best for this final image.
Enjoy!
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