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California Nebula - NGC1499 in Perseus

 

CLICK ON IMAGE FOR FULL SIZE VIEW (2600x1960)

CLICK HERE FOR HA IMAGE (2600x1960)

Scope: Zenithstar 66 mm APO  f/4.7, Dos Picos Park, Ramona, CA,   9 December 2010  Camera: ST8300M

Exposure:  13 x 10  min H-Alpha Exposure (1x1),  7 x 4 min RGB exposures (2x2).

Processing: Images were captured with CCDSoft. Aligned/stacked and dark subtracted in Astroart ; Sigma Combine method was used for stacking subs.  All channels were scaled and rough color balanced in Astroart.  Central Gradient removal  was done in Astroart. Channels were co-registered in Astroart.   The 10 minute H-Alpha  exposures were used  for the main luminance construction with level adjustments and curves to bring out object features.  LRGB combine was done in Photoshop. Saturation adjustments were selectively applied excluding the brighter areas. Bright area exclusion on some portions of Levels, Curves, and Saturation was to avoid core over brightening and out of Gamut.  A light background noise reduction was applied on the luminance construction in PixInsight LE (SGBNR).   Sharpening was done on the luminance construction. Final touches and color balance in Photoshop. Final Image size is approximately 3352x2532 (resized to 2600x1960).

All exposures in this image were guided; North is up in this image. NGC 1499 is an emission object in Perseus. The bright star in the lower right is Xi-Persei (common name Menkib). This star is the suspected  illumination / energy source for the nebula. This image replaces an earlier image that can be seen in the Archives here. The Horizontal FOV is 200'.

 

Image center is located approximately - Equatorial 2000: RA: 04h 01m 26.94s Dec: +36°24'54.37"

 

All images and content remain the property of Jim Thommes - copyright 2003 - 2012

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