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 Hβ filter (isolates the Hβ 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. Its fluorescence is due to excitation of the Hβ line in the nebula by the nearby prodigiously energetic O7 star, xi Persei (also known as Menkib.
The California Nebula was discovered by E. E. Barnard in 1884.

Imaging telescopes or lenses: Orion 80ED
Imaging cameras: Canon EOS 1000D / Rebel XS
Mounts: Orion Atlas EQ-G
Guiding cameras: Orion Star Shoot Planetary Imager & Autoguider
Focal reducers: Orion 0.85x Reducer/Corrector
Software: DeepSkyStacker, PHD guiding, photoshop, Canon EOS
Filters: Astronomik Ha
Dates: Dec. 29, 2011, Jan. 15, 2012
Frames:
17×480″ ISO1600
Astronomik Ha: 11×720″ ISO1600
Integration: 4.5 hours

Author: Mike Carroll
AstroPhotography of the day by SPONLI 11 Sep 2014