NGC 1499, The California Nebula
by James Hervat
Title
NGC 1499, The California Nebula
Artist
James Hervat
Medium
Photograph
Description
Photo Copyright J. Hervat
NGC 1499 is an elongated patch of emission nebulosity located in the constellation of Perseus. This swath of ionized hydrogen, 100 light-years long, is made to glow by starlight from Xi Persei, the blue star prominent at the bottom of the photo.
The nebula's angular size in our sky is quite large, as deep-sky objects (nebulae, galaxies, star clusters) go. It is about 2.5 degrees long--this is about five times the Moon's apparent diameter in the sky.
This image was made using an 1100mm focal length F/4 astrograph. The nebula,however, is much larger than the angular coverage of this instrument. Because of this, a composite of fifteen images was required to fully cover the nebula along with enough surrounding sky to achieve a pleasing composition. These were digitally assembled to create the image seen here.
The fifteen were taken over several nights during autumn of 2019. As is the normal procedure for deep-sky imaging, multiple short exposures were digitally "stacked" to make each component image an effectively longer exposure. In this case, twenty-five two-minute exposures were taken with a target goal of a total exposure time of fifty minutes per component image. Ideally, this would have added up to total of twelve-and-a-half hours of exposure time to create the the final image. Some attempts to achieve this target were frustrated by cloud interference, however, which resulted in slightly fewer two-minute exposures contributing to a some of the component image stacks.
NOTE: The Fine Art America watermark seen in the lower right corner of the image does not appear on the prints or other products.
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July 4th, 2021
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