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The California Nebula (also called NGC1499) is a hydrogen emission nebula located in the constellation Perseus. It is about 1.000 light years away from Earth. The name is derived from its form which roughly resembles the state of California.
As most emission nebulae, it is dominated by Hydrogen Alpha, which can be seen in the underlying red. The yellow tones indicate an abundance of Sulphur II. The third emission line - Oxygen III - is very faint in comparison, so additional integration time was required to visualize it (blue).
This project took 14 nights to complete - mainly because it was already late in the season and the object was only visible a few hours per night. The total integration time was 51 hours.
keepclicking wrote:
Dang! that is some work! Lovely Hats off to your for your patience......I can barely PP a photo after a trip
I appreciate your comment and share the sentiment about PP after photo trips. Same for me, it is difficult to find the motivation/time, especially if some weeks have already passed after returning. At times the knowledge of having data sitting on the SD card waiting to be processed feels like a sword of Damocles - and for a while you wonder why you are even bothering with this hobby :-)
Wonderful, simply wonderful. As for the knowledge and effort involved, hat off to you.
(as for PP-ing after trips...it depends on what you need to do, too! I have a routine of PP-ing a few of the shots I like right during or after the trip, which somehow whets my appetite for doing more. But I don't think a quick--and-easy approach would cut it for this type of PP )
jaggedhorizon wrote:
Wonderful, simply wonderful. As for the knowledge and effort involved, hat off to you.
(as for PP-ing after trips...it depends on what you need to do, too! I have a routine of PP-ing a few of the shots I like right during or after the trip, which somehow whets my appetite for doing more. But I don't think a quick--and-easy approach would cut it for this type of PP )
Thanks for your comment!
Agreed, depending on the image one might even look forward to editing. Especially for those shots for which one has a very clear routine/path in mind on what to do. It is indeed the images I do not know which direction to go at the beginning that are the toughest to get started with :-)
As a former backyard astrophotographer, I am awestruck. The technical knowledge needed to make an image like this is vast. And this post made me look at your others, and they're wonderful, especially the M31 image.
Hats off to you. Incredibly impressive for not just the final image, but the effort and deep knowledge that went into making it.
This is simply marvelous. I almost want to ask how did you make this, then quickly realized it’s likely far too advanced for me to even understand your process haha.
GregS wrote:
As a former backyard astrophotographer, I am awestruck. The technical knowledge needed to make an image like this is vast. And this post made me look at your others, and they're wonderful, especially the M31 image.
Hats off to you. Incredibly impressive for not just the final image, but the effort and deep knowledge that went into making it.
Your comment made my day! I have not made many deep sky images yet as each single one takes months to complete, so it is always nice to have someone also check some of the older projects.
Hats off to your for your patience......I can barely PP a photo after a trip 
)