Mountains in California Nebula, NGC 1499 (Barry Wilson)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Perseus (Per) · Contains: Sh2-220

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Mountains in California Nebula, NGC 1499

Link: https://barrywilson.smugmug.com

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Mountains in California Nebula, NGC 1499

Link: https://barrywilson.smugmug.com

I have been intrigued by the prominent dark obscuring dust 'hole' in the central regions of NGC 1499, California Nebula, for some time and when Steve and I were decided on a target some weeks ago , I framed this target as a 'look-see' really. During processing I was expecting the nebula to have better definition than I was finding. However, my disappointed changed when I realised that the image had captured the eroding nebula and its ionised gases streaming into space.

I wasn't sure what to expect and have been surprised by how strong the blue signal from the OIII data has been realised in the final image given it is relatively weak and was only a faint gradient across the frame in the uncalibrated master stack.

From Wikipedia: "The California Nebula (NGC 1499) is an emission nebula located in the constellation Perseus. It is so named because it appears to resemble the outline of the US State of California on long exposure photographs. It is almost 2.5° long on the sky and, because of its very low surface brightness, it is extremely difficult to observe visually. It can be observed with a Hα filter (isolates the Hα line at 656 nm) or Hβ filter (isolates the Hβ line at 486 nm) in a rich-field telescope under dark skies.[1] It lies at a distance of about 1,000 light years from Earth. Its fluorescence is due to excitation of the Hβ line in the nebula by the nearby prodigiously energetic O7 star, Xi Persei (also known as Menkib, seen at center below it in the inset at right).[2] The California Nebula was discovered by E. E. Barnard in 1884."

Data acquisition: Barry Wilson & Steve Milne

Processing: Barry Wilson

Original
Final
C

C

Description: A little brighter

Uploaded: ...

Narrowband imaging
Entre Encinas y Estrellas (e-EyE)

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	4263346
PixInsight job	6HV7QG7PGN19MIOBFC5JPV5FLGO5QTOY
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

RA (center)	04h00m57s.450
RA (top/left)	03h59m34s.180
RA (top/right)	04h02m19s.325
RA (bottom/right)	04h02m20s.666
RA (bottom/left)	03h59m34s.110

Dec (center)	+36°32′37″.32
Dec (top/left)	+36°11′46″.97
Dec (top/right)	+36°11′40″.43
Dec (bottom/right)	+36°53′24″.20
Dec (bottom/left)	+36°53′30″.63

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Mountains in California Nebula, NGC 1499

Mountains in California Nebula, NGC 1499

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Mountains in California Nebula, NGC 1499

Mountains in California Nebula, NGC 1499

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