20211122 - NGC 1499 / Sh-220 (PER) California - HOO-palette in the moonshine 

What’s in the picture(s) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Nebula
Quote: “The California Nebula (NGC 1499/Sh2-220) 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 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

By coincidence, the California Nebula transits in the zenith in central California as the latitude matches the declination of the object.”

What was the experience
So I caught the California Nebula during the full moon, with a decent result (previous post). Less spectacular compared to the other favourite DSO’s, but ‘the devil is in the detail’, and it seems I got that 👍

To practice the processing skills, I also made a version of this image with a HOO-palette, by splitting the channels from the L-enhance, constructing a new G-channel and recombining this as a ‘fake’ HOO

So, what changed in this image ? … Nothing … 😳🙄 The image got a lot more grainier (which I currently don’t know how it got there, or how I can get rid of it) and now I have a yellow-ish nebula instead of a dark red one 👍😬 It’s still the same Ha alright. Just wondering if the blue-ish fanning out is really representative of OIII or not. We will only know for certain if I eventually capture this one in real SHO … one day. Either that, or I goofed this one completely 😂

How it was done
Scope: TS-94 APO (FL 414mm)
Mount: EQ6-R Pro
Camera: ASI2600MC Pro
Filter: L-Enhance
Photons: 120s 60x
Darks/Flats/Bias
Processing: PixInsight (Mac)


What have I learned from this
Building up skills and building up experience: Re-processing the same image in different ways, helps to gain insights, a feel for the functionality of PixInsight. Although,  not a lot of colour-shading in this nebula. I’m not the biggest fan of the outcome of this image, but it helps to learn 😎
Constructive guidance is always welcome and appreciated, to help me improve my processing skills … Many thanks already for the many guidances, hints and tricks already received. It’s helping me to move … forward 😉

Clear Skies everybody! 🤩✨🔭

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