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Eye of the universe

Overall Photons: Andrea Iorio, Elisa Cuccu, Fernando Linsalata, Javier Caldera, Paul Montague, Carlos Uriarte Castillo, Darius Kopriva, Drew Evans, Bruno Rota Sargi, Blake Behrends, Manuel Alejandro Chavarría Silva, Phillip Hoppes, Jan Beranek, Roberto Volpini, Pier Mattia Basciano, Marco Finatti, Jeff Ratino, Vakhtang Khutsishvili, and Patrice Soom

NGC 7293 — better known as the Helix Nebula — is a planetary nebula roughly 650 light-years distant in Aquarius, the result of a dying star sloughing off its outer layers as it runs out of fuel. This photo represents 342.5 hours of data collected by 19 amateur astroimagers with telescopes ranging from a 2.8 inches to 12 inches in aperture. The extreme amount of exposure reveals extensive detail in the outer ionized hydrogen shells.