First Astro Image of 2024 - California Nebula

[JimFox]

I guess it's appropriate since I just got back to California to capture the California Nebula, NGC1499.

This was captured with the Seestar and with just about an hour of integration time. The latest Seestar Firmware lets us choose from 10, 20 or 30 second images. This one is with 30 second captures. I haven't had any issues with star trailing with the longer images. It is Bortle 9 here in SoCal and was also a 70% moon, so I think it came out well.

The framing is different with the Seestar then my ASI2600mc Pro, it's tighter and can't capture the whole nebula, but I liked how this looked like a flame radiating up from the bottom. At least that's how I saw it.

Seestar S50
125 - 30 second Lights
Dual Band Filter
Stacked and processed in Pixinsight
BlurXterminator
NoiseXterminator
StarXTerminaror
Finishing touches in Photoshop

All comments are welcome,

Jim

 

[AlanLichty]

Nice image and definitely a fitting target after getting back to SoCal.

 

[Mike Lewis]

very fun Jim - and also fun to see the ZWO folks opening up the collection options on the SeeStar! I look forward to some more images with these 'deeper' subframes in the future.

ML

 

[JimFox]

Nice image and definitely a fitting target after getting back to SoCal.

Thanks Alan!

 

[JimFox]

very fun Jim - and also fun to see the ZWO folks opening up the collection options on the SeeStar! I look forward to some more images with these 'deeper' subframes in the future.

ML

Thanks Mike! It's a fun little machine, and Pixinsight really pulls the best out of it. It's pretty cool to have a tool that is set up in 5 minutes for those times like last night where it was supposed to be cloudly, but then was clear at sunset and showed a 3 hour window of clear skies before the clouds moved in. To try and use my regular astro gear, it would have been an hour of setting up and then getting at a max 2 hours of imaging. It just never seems productive enough of my time then for that short window. But the Seestar, I can put it out there and be running quickly. With it's field rotation I can't really do more then 2 hours on a subject anyway, so it's perfect for taking advantage of those small windows.