 Today, I'm counting down numbers 10 through 6 in my personal list of the 10 best nebulae for astrophotographers. In making my choices, I tried to pick ones that are crowd favorites because of their visual impact and ones that I thought would be possible for many people across the world to capture and also offer a lot of potential for creativity in capture and processing. Number 10 is the Helix Nebula. This is a planetary nebula that is one of the biggest in the night sky of all the planetary nebulae and I also think one of the most beautiful. Often nicknamed the Eye of God or the Eye of Sauron, it's a bright object that will look good in natural colors with a DSLR or in narrowband. If you go really deep as Andy Campbell did here with a 63 hour integration, you'll find there's a lot of extended nebulosity that extends out to about half a degree or the diameter of the full moon. At negative 20 degrees declination, this object should be possible from most of the southern and northern hemispheres. If you're at 50 degrees latitude north or higher though, it's probably too low on the horizon to get a good picture of it. Number nine is the Eagle Nebula. This is an emission nebula that is quite famous for one Hubble space telescope image called the Pillars of Creation. That was a much lauded image and for good reason. It was also the first image to use what we now call the Hubble palette, which was the invention of Jeff Hester who processed this image. The eagle looks pretty good in natural color, but is dominated a bit by the red hydrogen signal. It really comes to life in map narrowband. At negative 13 degrees declination, it's a good object for most of the world. You would just have trouble at extreme northern locations. Number eight is the North America Nebula. This one is one that I return to again and again, as there's just so much to see here. Large billowing dark nebulae, detailed structures, oceans of bright O3. That's one of my favorite regions to explore with narrowband filters as it is very structured in all three of the main filters that we use, HA, O3, and S2. At plus 44 degrees in declination, it's very much a northern hemisphere object. Sorry, southern hemisphere, but for me at 45 degrees latitude here in Boston area, that means I get to see it for many months out of the year and next month it will actually be transiting straight overhead at the zenith, which is the darkest part of the sky and the best place to shoot a deep sky object. I'll also mention I'm not going to include the Pelican Nebula as a separate entry since it's right next to North America, but it's an awesome nebula in its own right. Number seven is the Colesack Nebula. A dark nebula that's so big you can spot it with a naked eye. It's about seven degrees across or the size of your outstretched fist holding up to the sky. And it's also easy to spot because it's right next to the southern cross. Sounds completely amazing, but I've yet to visit the southern hemisphere since I started astrophotography, so I haven't shot it. But this nebula is one of the first on my list when I do. At negative 62 degrees declination, it's only visible from the southern hemisphere. Number six is the Pleiades Star Cluster. Something about blue nebulae is just really striking to people. And the Pleiades are definitely a showpiece that look good at so many different focal lengths. If you go wider, you can pick up all the dust and tourists around them. If you go more zoomed in, you can pick up all the beautiful detail in the nebulosity that connects the cluster stars. It's very easy to find being a bright cluster, but also being a reflection nebula, it's best done from a dark site and with either a color camera or RGB or LRGB filters. It's at plus 24 degrees declination, so a good one for most of the northern and a lot of the southern hemisphere. Well, that was numbers six through 10 in my list. To find out the rest numbers five through one, you'll have to join me for next week's installment of Five Minute Fridays. This has been Nico Carver from Nebula Photos. Clear skies.