A week ago on the 16th February we had a brief period of clear weather in the evening and I thought I would have a go at observing the California Nebula (NGC1499). This is a large emission nebula in the constellation of Perseus that lies just north of Xi Persei (Menkib). It gets its name because the shape of the nebula looks like the outline of the state of California in the USA. The gas in the nebula is probably being excited by the light from Xi Persei which is a blue giant emitting copious amounts of UV. I went out with the Dwarf 3 about 9pm and this was the image I obtained after 183x15s (nearly 46 minutes) of observation:-
I used auto settings on the Dwarf and in Stellar Studio. The Duo Band filter was used to bring out the nebulosity. Binned x2 and modified in Photoshop to increase the gain and saturation. As the integration proceeded a lot of cloud kept coming and going, but the internal processing rejected those frames where cloud was present (very useful). The first image was at 21:06 UT and the last at 22.25 UT (midpoint 21:46). It was one day before new moon.
All text and images © Duncan Hale-Sutton 2026
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