The California Nebula (NGC 1499) is an emission nebula located in the constellation Perseus. It is so named because it appears to resemble the outline of the US State of California on long exposure photographs. It is almost 2.5° long on the sky and, because of its very low surface brightness, it is extremely difficult to observe visually. It can be observed with a H-Beta filter (isolates the H-Beta line at 486 nm) in a rich-field telescope under dark skies. It lies at a distance of about 1,000 light years from Earth.

The California Nebula was discovered by E. E. Barnard in 1884. (Wikipedia)

Taken on Dec 17, 2011 from my very light poluted front yard. There is a large regional mall 1 mile south of my home. This is an H-alpha photo to help defeat the light polution. It took me awhile to get set up as I was using my 80mm reflector for the first time in a long while and finder scope and guiders were not alighned well at all. Once going I was able to capture almost 2 hours of data before clouds ended the night.

Details:

Date Dec 17, 2011
Location: Columbia, MO
Camera: SBIG 8300M with Baader Ha filter
Scope: William Optics 80mm Fluorite Doublet with a W/O Reducer/Flattener IV @f5.5
Mount: Astro-Physics Mach1 GTO
Exposures: 7 x 15 mins, Darks, Flats
Processing: CCDStack, PhostoShop CS3