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Robert Helios

@helios_nebula

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Amateur astrophotographer
🔭 Tecnosky 115 APO (640mm f/5.6)
⚙️ Sky-Watcher EQ6-R Pro
🔭 ZWO OAG guiding
📷 Player One Ares-C Pro
📷 ZWO 220MM Mini

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What if I told you this cosmic monster is actually creating new stars?

Meet the Pacman Nebula, a spectacular stellar nursery located approximately 9,500 light-years away in the constellation Cassiopeia.

Behind its playful appearance lies an extraordinary world of glowing hydrogen, dark dust clouds and newborn stars.

At its heart, the young star cluster IC 1590 illuminates the surrounding gas, while powerful radiation sculpts the beautiful structures we see today.

For 14.5 hours, my telescope collected ancient light from this incredible region.

290 exposures.
180 seconds each.
Thousands of years of travelling light.

One small glimpse into the birthplace of stars.

🙏 A huge thanks to @myastroselection for the amazing help with processing this image! Your knowledge and attention to detail really helped bring out the best in my data. Truly appreciated!

📸 MY SETUP

🔭 Tecnosky 115/800 V3 Triplet APO
🔍 0.8× Reducer | 640mm | f/5.6
📷 Player One Ares-C Pro (IMX533)
❄️ −10°C | Gain 125 | Offset 50
⚙️ ZWO AM5N
🎯 ZWO OAG + ASI220MM Mini
🔬 SVBONY SV220 Dualband (Hα/OIII)
⏱️ 14.5 Hours | 290 × 180s
🌃 Bortle 6
💻 N.I.N.A. / PHD2 / PixInsight

✨ We don’t just photograph the universe. We capture its history, one photon at a time.

👇 Have you captured the Pacman Nebula? Tag me — I’d love to see your version!

Clear skies! 🔭🌌

#Astrophotography #PacmanNebula #NGC281 #DeepSkyAstrophotography #pixinsight by @helios_nebula

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an hour ago

Same photons. Same universe. A completely different interpretation.

Almost 7 hours of ancient light, captured from the Dumbbell Nebula (M27), approximately 1,360 light-years away in the constellation Vulpecula.

This is a new edit of my earlier M27 image, exploring different colours, contrasts and the delicate structures hidden within the data. 🔭

M27 is a planetary nebula, formed when a dying Sun-like star expelled its outer layers into space. The hot stellar remnant now illuminates the expanding clouds of gas, creating the beautiful structures we see today.

The blue-green glow comes primarily from ionized oxygen (OIII), while the reddish regions reveal emissions from hydrogen and nitrogen.

A dying star, leaving behind one final masterpiece.

What fascinates me about astrophotography is that processing can reveal an entirely different perspective on the same data.

No new photons. No additional exposure time. Just another way of bringing the universe to life.

A special thanks to @cvzastro for the help with this new edit and for sharing your processing knowledge. Really appreciate it!

📸 MY IMAGING SETUP

🔭 Tecnosky 115/800 V3 Triplet APO
🔍 0.8× Reducer | 640mm | f/5.6
📷 Player One Ares-C Pro (IMX533)
❄️ −10°C | Gain 125 | Offset 50
⚙️ Sky-Watcher EQ6-R Pro
🎯 ZWO OAG + ASI220MM Mini
🔬 SVBONY SV220 Dualband (Hα/OIII)
⏱️ Almost 7 Hours Integration | 180s subs
🌃 Bortle 6 skies
💻 N.I.N.A. / PHD2 / PixInsight

Sometimes the beauty isn’t in capturing more light, but in discovering what was already there.

👇 Which do you prefer — a natural colour palette or a more artistic interpretation of deep-space objects?

Clear skies!

#Astrophotography #M27 #DumbbellNebula #DeepSkyAstrophotography #PixInsight by @helios_nebula

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7 days ago

🫧 NGC 7635 — THE BUBBLE NEBULA

What if something so beautiful was born from something so violent?

11 hours of capturing ancient light from the Bubble Nebula, located approximately 7,100 light-years away in the constellation Cassiopeia.

This delicate cosmic bubble is anything but peaceful.

Powerful stellar winds from a massive, hot star are pushing against surrounding clouds of gas, creating an enormous bubble roughly 7 light-years across.

The glowing hydrogen clouds, intricate structures and delicate shell make this one of the most fascinating objects I’ve ever photographed.

11 hours beneath the stars. Thousands of years of travelling light. One extraordinary cosmic masterpiece.

🙏 A huge thank you to @myastroselection for helping me process this image and bring out the incredible details hidden in the data. Really appreciate your help!

📸 MY SETUP

🔭 Tecnosky 115/800 V3 Triplet APO
🔍 0.8× Reducer | 640mm | f/5.6
📷 Player One Ares-C Pro (IMX533)
❄️ −10°C | Gain 125 | Offset 50
⚙️ Sky-Watcher EQ6-R Pro
🎯 ZWO OAG + ASI220MM Mini
🔧 Gemini EAF
⏱️ 11 Hours Integration
🌃 Bortle 6
💻 N.I.N.A. / PHD2 / PixInsight

Sometimes the most beautiful things in our universe are born from unimaginable forces.

👇 Have you captured the Bubble Nebula? I’d love to see your version!

Clear skies! 🔭

#Astrophotography #BubbleNebula #NGC7635 #DeepSkyAstrophotography #astronomy by @helios_nebula

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9 days ago

What if the end of a star’s life could create something this beautiful?

Almost 7 hours of collecting ancient light, revealing one of the most fascinating planetary nebulae in our night sky.

Meet M27 — the Dumbbell Nebula, located approximately 1,360 light-years away in the constellation Vulpecula.

What we’re witnessing is the aftermath of a dying star, one that has shed its outer layers into space, leaving behind an expanding cloud of glowing gas.

The beautiful blue-green hues come primarily from ionized oxygen, while the reddish regions reveal glowing hydrogen.

A cosmic farewell, painted in light.

For nearly seven hours, my telescope patiently followed this celestial ghost across the sky, gathering photons that began their journey more than a thousand years ago.

And that’s what continues to amaze me about astrophotography.

We capture moments in the universe that happened long before we were born.

🙏 A special thanks to @myastroselection for the help and guidance during processing. Really appreciate your knowledge and willingness to help bring out the best in this data!

🔭 Tecnosky 115/800 V3 Triplet APO + 0.8× reducer (640mm)
📷 Player One Ares-C Pro (IMX533)
🎯 ZWO OAG + ZWO 220MM Mini
⚙️ Sky-Watcher EQ6-R Pro
⏱️ Almost 7 Hours Integration
🌃 Bortle 6 skies
💻 Processed in PixInsight

One dying star. A thousand years of travelling light. Seven hours beneath the night sky.

👇 Have you photographed M27 yourself? I’d love to see your version! Tag me or share your experience in the comments.

Clear skies, everyone!

#Astrophotography #M27 #DumbbellNebula #DeepSkyAstrophotography #Astronomy by @helios_nebula

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10 days ago

🔭 The glamorous side of astrophotography… making flats. 😅

We love talking about hours of integration, perfect guiding, faint nebulae and photons travelling thousands of light-years…

And then comes this part. 😂

Flats.

Not exactly the most exciting part of an imaging project, but definitely one of those little jobs that can make a huge difference to the final result.

Flats help correct the uneven illumination in the optical system — including vignetting and those annoying shadows from dust particles that somehow always seem to find their way into the imaging train.

Same camera orientation.
Same optical train.
Same focus position.
Then let N.I.N.A. do its thing. 📊✨

There’s something strangely satisfying about it, though.

After spending an entire night collecting ancient light from somewhere deep in space… you finish the project by pointing your telescope at a flat panel. 😅

Astrophotography: where even photographing a white screen is part of exploring the universe. 🌌

👇 Be honest: do you make fresh flats after every session, or are you firmly in team “these flats will survive another night”? 😂

#Astrophotography #CalibrationFrames #NINA #DeepSkyAstrophotography #astroimaging by @helios_nebula

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13 days ago

Having another go at it by @helios_nebula

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17 days ago

Sometimes the best image of the night isn’t the nebula… it’s the guiding graph.

After months of frustration, troubleshooting and wondering what the hell was going on with my mount, tonight finally felt different.

I decided to put it through a proper test again — under a full Moon, shooting OIII data. Not exactly the conditions you’d normally get excited about.

But then I looked at PHD2…

0.33” total RMS.

And it stayed tight. Really tight.

After everything I’ve been through with this mount, watching those RA and DEC lines quietly follow each other at the bottom of the screen was ridiculously satisfying. 😂

Meanwhile, photon by photon, the OIII signal was still appearing on the screen despite all that moonlight.

Astrophotography isn’t always about producing the perfect final image.

Sometimes it’s about finally seeing a piece of equipment that has driven you crazy for months suddenly behave exactly the way you always wanted it to.

Tonight, I’ll happily take that win.
Anyone who’s ever fought with a mount knows exactly how good this feels.

#Astrophotography #PHD2Guiding #DeepSkyAstrophotography #OIII #AstroImaging by @helios_nebula

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19 days ago

If you’re into astrophotography, you know the feeling: when something simply WORKS, you don’t mess with it. 😅

I’ve been using the Touch ’N Stars plugin and app with my astrophotography setup lately, and honestly, I’m really enjoying it.

Instead of constantly sitting behind the PC, I can simply grab my phone, check what’s happening and put it away again.

It’s clean, responsive and — most importantly — it just works.

And after enough nights dealing with cables, drivers, guiding, focusing, USB connections, Wi-Fi and equipment that suddenly decides it has other plans 😅, I’ve developed a serious appreciation for software that actually makes an imaging night simpler instead of more complicated.

Touch ’N Stars does exactly that.

My telescope and mini-PC are outside doing their thing, I’m comfortably inside, and I can quickly keep an eye on the session from my phone.

No unnecessary fuss. No need to constantly dive into Windows.

Just another small step towards spending less time managing the equipment… and more time enjoying this incredible hobby. ✨l

Big compliment to the people behind Touch ’N Stars.

👇 Are you using it too? Tell me what you think — and if you’ve found a clever way to use it in your setup, I’d love to hear it.

#Astrophotography #TouchNStars #NINA #DeepSkyAstrophotography #AstroTech by @helios_nebula

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22 days ago

After months of struggeling everything came together last night. I tested the mount thorough and it behaved perfect with guiding figures below 0.4” Now waiting for another clear night to start making hours again on the Lobster Claw , the Whitchbroom and Bubble Nebula.
#space #nebula #happydays #astronomy by @helios_nebula

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23 days ago

by @helios_nebula

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a month ago

Some galaxies announce themselves with perfect spiral arms and brilliant glowing cores.

M108 doesn’t.

The Surfboard Galaxy appears almost edge-on from our perspective — a long, slender island of stars crossed by chaotic lanes of dark cosmic dust. There is no dominant bright nucleus demanding attention. Instead, its beauty is hidden in texture, shadow and countless subtle details.

And that’s exactly what makes M108 so fascinating to photograph.

Light travelling across tens of millions of light-years, finally ending its journey on a tiny sensor beneath my night sky.

Hour after hour, the faint structure slowly emerges from the darkness.

Dust becomes visible.
Stars begin to separate.
And a distant smudge becomes an entire galaxy.

🔭 Tecnosky 115/800 V3 Triplet APO + 0.8× reducer (~640mm)
📷 Player One Ares-C Pro (IMX533)
🎯 ZWO OAG + ZWO 220MM Mini
⚙️ ZWO AM5N
🌃 Bortle 6 skies
💻 Processed in PixInsight

Sometimes the universe doesn’t need spectacular colours to be beautiful. You just have to look a little deeper.

👇 What’s your favourite galaxy that doesn’t get nearly enough attention?

#Astrophotography #M108 #SurfboardGalaxy #DeepSkyAstrophotography #galaxy by @helios_nebula

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a month ago

Before the year slips into silence, the sky still has a few stories left to tell.

From the delicate Draconids to the final Ursids, the coming months are an invitation to slow down, step outside, and simply look up.

For me, the Geminids are the one circled in gold: a long winter night, dark skies, and the chance to watch the universe write light across the sky.

No telescope needed. Just warmth, patience, and a little darkness.

Which meteor shower are you hoping to catch this year?

#astrophotography #meteorshower #stargazing #nightsky #geminids by @helios_nebula

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a month ago