California Nebula (NGC 1499) wide angle view (Ha + RGB composite) (rdk_CA)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Perseus (Per) · Contains: California Nebula · NGC 1499 · The star 50Per · The star ξPer

California Nebula (NGC 1499) wide angle view (Ha + RGB composite), rdk_CA

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California Nebula (NGC 1499) wide angle view (Ha + RGB composite)

Powered byPixInsight

California Nebula (NGC 1499) wide angle view (Ha + RGB composite)

This image is a composite view of the California nebula. For this, I used an Ha narrow band filter to serve as the L channel. I was debating over whether to image this fully in narrow band using the SHO palette, or to use short exposures using RGB filters in an attempt to add natural-looking star colors. For this particular target, the Ha+RGB images always seem to look more pleasing, so I went with the later option. The Ha data turned out reasonably well, but given the light pollution in my area, the RGB data was extremely noisy, with large gradients across the image. I was debating over whether to just post the mono image, but managed to do enough background subtraction to more or less eliminate most (though not all) of this.

In compiling the image, I used Nebulosity 4 for stacking, and then Pixinsight for processing. For the L channel, I performed an HDR stretch on the Ha data to bring out some more of the structure in the brighter parts of the nebula. Then, using the PixelMath utility, I blurred the color data and combined Ha + R for the red channel to compile this image. I lastly did some final adjustments to the contrast and saturation (along with some final noise reduction) to obtain the final image above.

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	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
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The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
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Status	Basic success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	5310406
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

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California Nebula (NGC 1499) wide angle view (Ha + RGB composite)

California Nebula (NGC 1499) wide angle view (Ha + RGB composite)

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Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

California Nebula (NGC 1499) wide angle view (Ha + RGB composite)

California Nebula (NGC 1499) wide angle view (Ha + RGB composite)

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Sky plot

Histogram

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