The California Nebula: Print

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The California Nebula (NGC 1499) is an emission nebula in the constellation Perseus, approximately 1,000 light-years from Earth. Spanning about 100 light-years, it emits a characteristic red glow due to ionized hydrogen gas excited by the nearby star Xi Persei (Menkib). Despite its apparent magnitude of 6.0, its low surface brightness makes it challenging to observe without specialized equipment, such as telescopes with Hα or Hβ filters.

This image was taken over a period of 18 months totally some 50 hours of exposure time using narrow-band filters. The image has been processed using the "Hubble Palette".

The Hubble Palette is a colour mapping technique used in astrophotography to enhance and differentiate the details of celestial objects, such as nebulae, captured by telescopes. It assigns specific colours to different wavelengths of light: typically, sulphur-II (SII) emissions are mapped to red, hydrogen-alpha (Ha) emissions to green, and oxygen-III (OIII) emissions to blue. This technique highlights features that are not visible to the naked eye, creating vibrant and detailed images of space phenomena.