The california nebula from my backyard

[moonshinegnomie]

Im working on a multi day image of a certainnebula but i can only shoot it for kess than 2 hours a night before its blcked by my house. so i tried something new last night. I set my equipment up to shoot for the 2 hours and then automatically shift to a new target and shoot that for 4 hours.

this is the second target,NGC 1499,known as the california nebula. Its about 1000 light years away from earth. the nebula is lit by radiation from the bright star to the right of it called menkib which is a very large hot star nearby.

teh nebula is very hard to see visually becasue its so spread out but in photos it resembles the state of california




still getting data for the target,maybe tonight ill finish it

[True Dough]

1. Do you charge people

to stop by your backyard in order to enjoy that view?



Thanks for sharing!

[moonshinegnomie]

2. i wish :)

actually its impossible to see things like this with the naked eye.

even though most nebulas are reddish or blueish depending on the type our eyes arent sensitive enough to see much if any color in them. they are just to dim. the camera has teh advantage of being able to take long exposures instead of the instantaneous view our eyes give. with your eyes while you may see the general shape of the object it will look greyish maybe a hint of greenish instead of red

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. This is wonderful! Thank you for sharing it. ♥ nt

[brer cat]

4. What a great shot! Thanks for sharing, moonshinegnomie!

[ShazzieB]

5. Beautiful and fascinating!

[flying_wahini]

6. Wow! Just Wow. Fantastic that you figured it out. Lucky us that you shared itoo.

[Grumpy Old Guy]

7. Wow!

[Maru Kitteh]

8. Stunning! Love it. :-)