NGC 2359, also called Thor’s Helmet, is an emission nebula that is 15,000 light years away. It is a bubble of ionized gas around a hot central star, Wolf-Rayet WR7. It is 16 x 8 arc min in size, and I was pleasantly surprised that I could capture it with my small telescope. These pictures were made by stacking 64 3 minute images (and cropping).
I’ve been learning PixInsight, and I had some fun with playing with CurvesTransformation on this one. So, in addition to a standard view of the nebula, I created one I call “Thor in a Snowstorm”.
Which do you like better?
Camera geek info:
- Canon EOS 60D in manual mode, 179 second exposure, ISO 2000, custom white balance 3500K
- Williams Optics Zenith Star 73 III APO telescope
- Williams Optics Flat 73A
- iOptron CEM40
- Dell City, Texas Bortle 2-3 dark skies
Processing geek info:
- PixInsight
- 64 3 minute lights
- 20 3 minute darks
- 40 0.1 second flats
- 40 0.1 second flat darks
Space&Aliens 
I like the standard the best.
Thanks! The standard one makes me want to get more data and make it better. Or learn more processing techniques. 😀 Fooling around with Curves was part of learning more processing techniques, and I thought the second was a funky result.