Captured over 30 hours in Oshawa, Ontario, the January 22, 2022, Photo of the Week winner Artem Ukropov brings us a crystal clear look at the California Nebula.

NGC 1499 is an emission nebula, a type of nebula that generates light internally as opposed to reflecting light from somewhere else.

The nebula is commonly known as the “California Nebula” due to the shape of the nebula resembling the state of California in the United States and is located approximately 1,000 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Perseus.

It is somewhat difficult to observe due to the nebula’s low surface brightness, but that did not stop Artem Ukropov from capturing the nebula with his William Optics RedCat51 (f/4.9)telescope and ZWO ASI2600MM camera.

Honourable mention

This week’s honourable mention goes to Jason Dain, who captured Sh2-240 with over 46 hours of data, a personal longest for Dain.

Sh2-240, also known as the Spaghetti Nebula and Simeis 147, is a supernova remnant located in the Milky Way. A supernova remnant (SNR) is an expanding nebula that results from a supernova explosion.

Dain captured the image of the Spaghetti Nebula using his ZWO ASI294MM camera, along with his Samyang 135mm (f/2) telescope. He collected the data at Stillwater Lake, Nova Scotia.

“I really liked the look of this target and it would certainly be a challenge to get a good image given how faint it is,” he wrote. “I had tried this with my colour camera setup but quickly realized this would be a better job for a mono camera and narrowband filters.”