NGC 1499 - The California Nebula

It has now been a little over a year since I took my first deep-sky astrophotography image. A lot has happened since then, and I wanted to go back to where it all began, that being NGC 1499. Since December last year, I have upgraded almost all my equipment, excluding the telescope and guiding equipment. I have also made some improvements in the image-processing aspects of things. However, since upgrading to a monochrome camera, I'm sort of back to the beginner level in many ways as it comes with a whole new workflow that I am still trying to learn and get comfortable with.

I began shooting the target around eight o'clock as it was obscured during the hours before that. The sky was illuminated by a first-quarter moon until around eleven, so I decided to begin the night by taking my H-Alpha exposures. I quickly noticed in the previews that there was some sort of gradient in the upper corner. This was not a huge issue, to begin with, but in the later exposures, it became more apparent. When the first red filter exposure was taken, I quickly saw I would not be able to continue shooting from the comfort of my apartment. Now a lot of targets unfortunately are placed too high up in the sky for me to photograph. NGC 1499 however was visible, but because it was so close to the edge of the balcony above, the light emitting from Christmas lights (yeah it is that time of the year ) completely exploded into my images.

I had to make a quick decision. Since the remaining of the night was supposed to be clear and without a moon, I decided to pack my things and head to the nearest field where the target would be visible. The location was not further than 400 meters so the walk didn't take long. I had to go through somewhat deep snow to get out into the middle of the field where I would have the widest view of the sky. The actual transportation, and setting up of the equipment worked flawlessly and I am really satisfied with the whole lightweight ZWO setup I got going on.

The temperatures outside were mild (around 0 degrees Celsius). This was also a deciding factor, as I would not have gone out if it was any colder than this. The wind however was somewhat strong which made it feel a lot colder. Despite the wind, my guiding values were excellent and kept themselves under 1 RMS. The images also came out clear and I was happy to be back on track 

Since I did not have a comfortable car to spend my time in while my rig was imaging, I found myself quite bored and unsure of what to do for the upcoming hours. I didn't feel safe leaving the rig alone and going back to the apartment, so I found myself sitting down and watching the stars. During this time I saw some spectacular meteors! After around thirty minutes or so I began to feel cold so I stood up. With the wind still being strong I couldn't be on my phone as my hands would freeze, and I also didn't have any data  During the last hour, my wonderful girlfriend came out to me and brought me hot chocolate  Time went past a lot faster when I had someone to talk to, and around three in the morning I packed up and went home to sleep.

After the night it became apparent to me that I would need to get my driver's license and a car if I wanted to take quality images without freezing to death or risking my equipment being stolen while unsupervised. As my balcony has limited visibility and somewhat strong light pollution, I won't be able to image for long and with good image quality. This will be one of the things I will strive to achieve during 2024 and I hope to offer an even better image with more integration time and better image quality by the end of next year.

As far as the image goes, I am satisfied and I see great improvements. I understand my limitations as mentioned with lower integration times (this being 3h 40min) and light pollution (this being imaged from Bortle 6 with streetlights and such washing out details). I was still able to bring out some of the surrounding dust, and the quality of the H-Alpha is a lot more sharp. The guiding Is better as my previous attempt left me with somewhat long stars due to poor PA and balancing. The previous attempt was also very noisy and grainy.

I may end up re-editing the it and uploading a new revision, but for now, this is the final image.

All the best to you, clear skies.
Lupus.