NGC 1499 "The California Nebula"
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 H-Beta filter (isolates the H-Beta line at 486 nm) in a rich-field telescope under dark skies. It lies at a distance of about 1,000 light years from Earth. This image of the California nebula is a false color image taken with a Hydrogen Alpha (Ha), Sulfur (SII) and Triple Ionized Oxygen (OIII) filter. The image is a 2 panel mosaic taken with a 80mm refractor. The image was processed to replicate the colors represented by RGB filters. SII and Ha were mapped to red and OIII to blue
- Optics : Stellarvue SV80ST2 Triplet Refractor with a SFF7-21 Field Flattener
- Mount: Mountain Instruments MI-250
- Camera: QSI 583
- Filters: Astronomik SII:Ha:OIII filter set
- Exposure: SII:Ha:OIII 60:60:60 2 panel mosaic
- Camera/Mount Control: Maxim DL 4.56, CCD Commander
- Location: Stark Bayou Observatory, Ocean Springs, MS
- Date: Sep 10
