The California Nebula - Shot over 3 Nights (21st, 22nd and 25th Nov) (David Westcombe)

The California Nebula - Shot over 3 Nights (21st, 22nd and 25th Nov)

The California Nebula - Shot over 3 Nights (21st, 22nd and 25th Nov 2020)

This is the first time I have tried shooting multiple nights on the same target.

It proved to be a challenge getting the same shot each night.

Had to plate solve the previous night's image and slew to the solved coordinates.

A first for me but it worked a treat.

Here is what Google says about the California nebula.

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 lies at a distance of about 1,000 light-years from Earth. Its fluorescence is due to excitation of the Hydrogen β line in the nebula by the nearby prodigiously energetic O7 star, Xi Persei, also known as Menkib (Its the big star centre top of image)

As Requested By Michael Tweedy here is the image and gear info

Total integrated time 5.5 Hours

79 @ 300s (iso 800) Lights

100 @ 300s (iso 800) Darks

150 @ 1/25s (iso 800) Flats

150 @ 1/25s (iso 800) Dark Flats

150 @ 1/4000 (iso 800) Bias

Gear

Camera - Modded 700d

Scope - Skywatcher Evostar-80ED DS-PRO

Reducer/Flattener - Altair Lightwave reducer flattener 0.8

Mount - HEQ5 Pro

Filter - Skyteh CLS Filter (Clip-in)

Software - Stellarium, Sharp Cap ( For polar alignment ), Astap, BackyardEOS, DSS, Star Tools, Photoshop, Topaz

Please note: The following tables are updated every 24 hours.

Distribution of astrophotographers

This table shows the number of distinct astrophotographers who have been assigned and IOTD/TP award compared to the total number of images awarded.
	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

Distribution of subject types

This table shows the distribution of awards per subject type, compared to the popularity of images of that subject type.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

Distribution of data sources

This table shows the distribution of awards per data source, compared to the popularity of images acquired from that data source.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
Promotions by Submitters When 3 distinct Submitters promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for Top Pick status. This requirement, in addition to anonymization of images and distribution to only a subset of them, prevents biases and ensures that the best images are selected.
Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

Status	n/a
Started	n/a
Astrometry.net job	n/a
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

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Contribution Index (beta):