NGC1499_California Nebula_SHO_31-Dec-24_v1

Target: NGC1499 The California Nebula in the Hubble pallet

 

The California Nebula is an emission nebula located in the constellation Perseus. Its name comes from its resemblance to the outline of the US State of California (in this composition on it's side). It is almost 2.5° long on the sky compared with the the moon at 1/2°. It lies at a distance of about 1,000 light years from Earth. While evaluating individual images that were stacked, I found I had captured a 200km diameter asteroid 13 Egeria. It's located to the left and down from the brightest star, above and between the close by 2 bright

 

Gear:

• Mount: ZWO AM5

• Main Cam: ZWO ASI294MM Pro @ gain 120 and -10C

• Guide Cam: ZWO ASI120MM Mini with Askar OAG

• Telescope: Askar 103APO w/.8x reducer - 560mm f/5.4

• Filter: Antlia EDGE Antlia SHO 4.5nm

 

Acquisition:

• 4 Panel Mosaic

• Roughly 4.5 hours integration each panel

• Sessions: 29, 30, and 31-Dec-2024

• Moon: n/a

• Location: Houston Backyard ~ Bortle 8/9

• Location: Austin Backyard ~ Bortle 8/9

 

Pixinsight Processing - SHO MOSAIC

• Assemble Panels

• Image Solver

• Mosaic by Coordinates

• Trim Mosaic Tile

• Photometric Mosaic (average)

• Crop, Auto ABE, Image Solver

• BXT, SXT

 

• Stars Only

• NB to RGB Stars Combination script with star stretch

 

• Starless

• Revert image back to having stars

• Stretch using HT_Stretch_Unlinked pixel math script

• LRGB Combination into SHO pallet

• Invert, SCNR to fix magenta stars

• Narrowband Normalization SHO

• NXT

• HT to set black point, Curves for color balance, Saturation

 

Photoshop Processing

• Starless

• Levels color balancing

• ACR highlights, black point, clarity, color mixer, noise reduction

• Stars

• Curves, Dust and Scratches to reduce stars

• Watermark

Done