I really do not know why ngc7293 is called the Helix Nebula. To me it looks like an eye.a red eye in the sky. I guess if I had a galaxy stuck in the upper right corner of my eye, it would turn red too! Kidding aside, ngc7293 is the dying remnants of a red super giant star whose material has expand 2.5 light years across in 12,000 years. A faint red arc of its stellar material can also be seen on the upper left side and is especially pronounced in hydrogen alpha. The Helix Nebula appears over half a moon wide and is one of the closest planetary nebulae to the Earth. The Helix Nebula was imaged through an Astrophysics 5 inch Starfire apochromat and ATK16HR cooled camera. A cumulative exposure time of 6.2 hours was taken over two evenings to capture this picture.
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