After the initial intention to take a narrow-band only image, I decided to record also RGB data in search for the Taurus Dust Cloud present in the field. This resulted in a completely different image than the one initially planned, definitively more chaotic but probably more illustrative of the matter fluctuaating close to the galactic plane.
Narrow band has been captured using a Samyang 135mm lens, while RGB has been taken with a Sigma 135mm Art, manually focused.
As it happens when we look a foggy landscape, in this picture some depth can be perceived, with part of the IFN standing in front of the red emission nebula, and much further away, a carpet of galaxies hundreds of millions light year away, well outside our galaxy (revision B).
NGC1499 Sh2-220 California NebulaIt is an emission nebula located in the constellation Perseus discovered by E. E. Barnard in 1884.
Its name comes from its resemblance to the outline of the US State of California in long exposure photographs.
It lies at a distance of about 400 pc (1300 ly) from Earth in the Orion arm of the Milky Way, the same that is hosting our Sun (see Picture 1 below). If we think of Orion's Spur as a road, then the California Nebula lives just across the road from the home of the Sun!
The emission portion (red in the picture) is around 100 light-years long, and it is ionised by the O7.5 III giant Menkhib (Xi Persei) in the Per OB2 association within the California molecular cloud.
This region is indeed part of the local Taurus dust cloud complex (which also extends in the direction of the constellation Perseus).
NGC1548It is simply an open cluster dicovered by J Herschel in 1832.
IC2003It is a distant planetary nebula, 5500 pc away from earth.
IC351It is a planetary nebula placed 5600 pc away from earth.
IC2023It is a galaxy distant 158 Mpc (515 Mly).
Picture 1: Location of the California Nebula and the Sun in the Orion Arm. Milky Way portion seen from North (Coma), galactic center in vertical direction down.
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