The NGC7293 Helix Nebula is a very interesting and pretty large planetary nebula located towards the South. Given Spain's latitude, it can be imaged within a window of about two months of the year, though it is still fairly low in altitude above horizon throughout. I tended to start imaging this target when it was 18° above horizon, and ended before it dipped to the same altitude above horizon later in the night. My initial plan was to do this in the Hubble Palette, but between the weeks passing and the Moon disappearing later in the night, the window to image this target was soon closing. I therefore cut my imaging run short of capturing any Sulphur-II data.
The data I have collected on this target this year is therefore 60 exposures each of 30 minutes. This is 30 exposures in Hydrogen-Alpha and 30 exposures in Oxygen-III. The following is my resulting image:
Overall I am very pleased with the result as it clearly captured some of the fainter nebulosity towards the outer edges of the nebula. Not only that but the detail in the core is very intense. With a careful application of colour masks and range masks, I was able to apply noise reduction and fine detail sharpening in tandem, to achieve an excellent compromise between both. I essentially wanted to sharpen the fine streaks of nebulosity streaking radially outward from the core, while keeping the blue core from becoming excessively noisy.