NGC 1499 - California Nebula (Wanda Conde)

NGC 1499 - California Nebula

The California Nebula is an emission nebula located in the constellation of Perseus. It is so named because its shape resembles the outline of the state of California in the US It is a large celestial object and did not fit entirely in the field of view of my photographic equipment. It is located at a distance of about 1,000 light years from Earth. Its fluorescence is due to the excitation of hydrogen atoms by the star Xi Persei which you can see at the top.

As I continue to learn how to use a Hyperstar, I find out what I can and cannot do with it. I captured this object in tandem with NGC 2264 because due to obstructions I have to change objects in the middle of the night. My plan was to use narrowband filters, but the OIII filter produced hideous halos around the bright stars in both objects. That is when in spite of my Bortle 7-8 skies, I switched gears to broadband filters hoping for the best.

Now I know that FOVs with bright stars are a NO NO in fast systems! Unfortunately I could not get away from the unpleasant halo around Xi Persei, which was practically impossible to process. Gradients of light pollution were also very difficult to handle. I also had some issues with the autoguider and noticed that I have to check the collimation because it is a bit out of place and the stars are not as sharp as I would like. Some stars seem to have something like chromatic aberration. I'm not sure if that's due to the guiding issues I faced or the Hyperstar collimation. Any ideas?? All things considered, I think this was good practice as I was able to identify the things that I need to adjust.

Original
Final
B

B

Description: While I wait for the weather to improve I am having a lot of fun dialing down the noise from my old images using Russell Croman's NoiseXterminator. It works beautifully!! I also changed the color profile to Adobe RGB. Is amazing how small improvements can go a long way in your end result.

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	6339844
PixInsight job	SII05F6D17V076NES48UTIPX9GVLLV5M
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	04h00m01s.99
RA (top/left)	04h03m31s.88
RA (top/right)	03h54m02s.42
RA (bottom/right)	03h56m26s.60
RA (bottom/left)	04h06m04s.54

Dec (center)	+36°21′31″.2
Dec (top/left)	+35°17′55″.5
Dec (top/right)	+35°56′59″.9
Dec (bottom/right)	+37°24′44″.7
Dec (bottom/left)	+36°44′52″.5

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