California Nebula in SHO

C

Chris Plonski

Active Member
NGC1499 is better known as the California Nebula due to it's shape, though I think it's more like The Mosquito Trapped in Amber Under Halogen Light Nebula. This is a 2 panel mosaic shot over most of January/February. This huge gas cloud is located in the constellation Perseus. The super-bright blue star Xi Persei fuels the ionized gases made up of Hydrogen (green in image), Sulphur (red in image) and Oxygen (blue in image) to glow in their respective spectral ranges. The star is reported to be about 12,000 times brighter than our Sun. NGC1499 is located in the Orion arm of the Milky Way galaxy roughly 1000-1500 light years away and 60-100 light years across.

NGC1499 by Chris Plonski, on Flickr
 
AlanLichty

AlanLichty

Moderator
Beautiful imaging and a good explanation of what it is for those of us in need of an astronomical education. I like your alternative description of what it looks like :)
 
Mike Lewis

Mike Lewis

Staff Member
Lovely result - makes me excited to try my first mosaic effort on this one this fall. Great palette mix with wonderfully tight stars and great framing make this a wonderful shot. What camera /OTA combo did you use on this one?

ML
 
JimFox

JimFox

Moderator
Staff member
This is awesome Chris! Love the look of this and your color choices. I think perhaps you see more detail with the SHO then when it's done as all red?
 
C

Chris Plonski

Active Member
JimFox said:
This is awesome Chris! Love the look of this and your color choices. I think perhaps you see more detail with the SHO then when it's done as all red?
Click to expand...
I definitely like the added detail from using the Hubble palette on this target. I may try to use the narrowband data in a natural color palette in the near future for comparison.
 
C

Chris Plonski

Active Member
Mike Lewis said:
Chris,

Thanks for the info. Very nice. I have a 100mm OTA and the same camera so might be hard to get this in 2 x 1 for me, I'll have to see how it goes.

ML
Click to expand...
I put this one off for a long time but found I could fit it into 2 panels. My EFL is 523 if that helps. I used the framing and mosaic wizard in SGP to set this up.
 
Mike Lewis

Mike Lewis

Staff Member
Chris,

Good info thanks. I am at 580mm, so I think I have to be perfectly rotated and then it will depend on the amount of overlap. How much overlap did you use in your panels? I have no experience with that yet either. I will be setting it up in TheSkyX. Biggest issue will be not having a camera rotator and not being at the site in person, having to try to get it tweaked by my friend remotely. It will definitely be a science project :)

ML
 
C

Chris Plonski

Active Member
Mike Lewis said:
Chris,

Good info thanks. I am at 580mm, so I think I have to be perfectly rotated and then it will depend on the amount of overlap. How much overlap did you use in your panels? I have no experience with that yet either. I will be setting it up in TheSkyX. Biggest issue will be not having a camera rotator and not being at the site in person, having to try to get it tweaked by my friend remotely. It will definitely be a science project :)

ML
Click to expand...
I did mine in SGP Pro's Framing and Mosaic Wizard. It was set to 7% overlap
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom