California Nebula, Duo Narrowband with RGB Stars (Matt)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Perseus (Per) · Contains: 46 ksi Per · California Nebula · IC 2005 · LBN 752 · LBN 756 · LDN 1456 · LDN 1462 · LDN 1463 · LDN 1464 · LDN 1469 · Menkib · NGC 1499 · Sh2-220 · The star ξPer

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California Nebula, Duo Narrowband with RGB Stars

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California Nebula, Duo Narrowband with RGB Stars

This hobby is definitely a perishable skill... I'm happy with this image as is, but it's the culmination of a frustrating few days.

It looked like we were going to have a few clear nights in the past week. I haven't imaged since early September, so I had been itching to get out and shoot something. I got it in my mind to try and shoot the California Nebula. NGC 1499 was the first nebula I tried to image this time last year (result not on astrobin), and I wanted to see how far I'd come since then.

Well, the first two nights I tried to shoot were crystal clear, and were also complete busts. To make a long story short, I had mistakenly used an extra spacer between my camera and field flattener - making it impossible to achieve focus. It took me a lot of troubleshooting and wasted time to figure that out. I finally got everything working on night three and was able to log two nights of L Enhance data with a few minutes of unfiltered shots for star color. In those two nights, my equipment worked like a charm, I did my first automated meridian flip...and intermittent clouds also ruined 10 out of 14 hours worth of shots.... that's just the way she goes.

By the time I got around to processing, I was getting impatient. This final result might be a rushed edit, but I also think it's my personal best as far as nebulae go.

Between a busy new job and a rowdy one year old kid, I'll be lucky to get a night or two a month to image. I need to make sure I make those nights count! Clear skies everyone.

Original
Final
B

B

Description: Wanted to bring out more contrast

Uploaded: ...

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	5216521
PixInsight job	SF34PO988KL70IZ8ZPDQJ0RNEUJKPB8S
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	04h00m22s.40
RA (top/left)	03h54m41s.72
RA (top/right)	03h54m25s.83
RA (bottom/right)	04h05m48s.57
RA (bottom/left)	04h06m32s.49

Dec (center)	+36°15′16″.6
Dec (top/left)	+37°53′59″.1
Dec (top/right)	+34°39′39″.5
Dec (bottom/right)	+34°35′23″.7
Dec (bottom/left)	+37°49′28″.6

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California Nebula, Duo Narrowband with RGB Stars

California Nebula, Duo Narrowband with RGB Stars

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California Nebula, Duo Narrowband with RGB Stars

California Nebula, Duo Narrowband with RGB Stars

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