NGC-7293, commonly called "The Helix Nebula", is the largest and closest of all the planetary nebulae. It is located in the constellation of Aquarius. It has an apparent diameter of over 16 minutes of arc, making it visually almost half the size of the full moon. It lies at a distance of 690 light years from Earth, and at that distance, its angular size translates to an actual diameter of 3.5 light years. Its age is estimated to be 10,00 years, based on its expansion rate of 31 Km per second.
This image, acquired on August 18, 2020, is a 1 hour 52 minute integration of 4 minute exposures through the Celestron C-11 at f/2, using the HyperStar imaging system and the Starlight Express SXVR-H694C color CCD camera, operating at -10 degrees below ambient temperature and binned 1 X 1. Guided, captured and combined using Maxim DL5 Pro. Post processed using PhotoShop CS2, Gradient XTerminator, StarShrink, Carboni's Astro Tools and NoiseWare.