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Hi folks: I just reprocessed an image of NGC 1499/California Nebula I captured in December of 2022 and January of 2023. Link and full details here:  NGC 1499 (California Nebula) HOO with RGB Stars Above and to the left of Menkib are two bluish blotches that don't appear to be hot pixels, but look more like a comet. I don't have the subs handy right now, but they would appear to correspond to the two nights of imaging using the L-eXtreme filter, about a month apart. The object has moved, but a relatively short distance.  Here is a better view of them, circled in red. Apologies if this really is just hot blue pixels that got stacked/rejected oddly, but it really does look like the glow of a comet to me. Odd thing is, it doesn't appear in the broadband data (L-Pro) taken a few nights after the final L-eXtreme session, but that was just an hour of very short exposures for RGB stars, so perhaps it's too faint to show up there. I tried Stellarium but couldn't find anything in that area, though I'm not a pro user. Is there anyone out there that could help me ID this object, or objects? CS, Mark |
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Here's a search result for images of the California Nebula with acquisition dates around that time. https://www.astrobin.com/search/?q=%22California%22&d=i&subject=&telescope=&camera=&date_published_min=2011-11-09&date_published_max=2024-03-19&date_acquired_min=2022-12-01&date_acquired_max=2023-01-31&sort= There's 4 pages of them, so if you don't find an answer here, you could check them out and perhaps ask some of the photographers to check their subs  |
4.02
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That doesn't look like a comet. Looks maybe like a reflection nebula? Will check on Aladin |
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4.02
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Nothing there: Since you say it moved a short distance, I don't know what it is. |
7.90
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| You need to add dates and times in UT to allow to do a search in the MPC website. |
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andrea tasselli: December 14 2022 & January 18 2023 for the two nights the object appeared. When I’m back at home I’ll check the subs for the specific time, but given how little it moved, I suspect that might not make a huge difference. Thanks all! Curious mystery. |
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Salvatore Iovene: Thanks for the link Salvatore! I had a good look at the images and couldn't find anything matching what I see on my stacked image. I'm beginning to think it might be a stacking artifact, though it looks very similar to what I see on a single sub of a comet. I'll check individual subs again and see. |
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| No known comet at that time within 1 degree radius from Ksi Persei. To better identify the thing (if indeed is a thing) I'd need a fix of both time and position. |
