NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day Collection

NGC 1499: The California Nebula

What's California doing in space? Drifting through the Orion Arm of the spiral Milky Way Galaxy, this cosmic cloud [ http://www.anzwers.…ngc1499.html ] by chance echoes the outline of California [ http://en.wikipedia…] on the west coast of the United States [ https://www.cia.gov…]. Our own Sun also lies within the Milky Way's Orion Arm [ http://www.anzwers.…], only about 1,500 light-years from the California Nebula [ http://en.wikipedia…]. Also known as NGC 1499 [ http://www.seds.org…Misc/n1499.html ], the classic emission nebula is around 100 light-year [ http://starchild.gs…]s long. It glows with the red light characteristic of hydrogen atoms recombining with long lost [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] electrons, stripped away (ionized [ http://csep10.phys.…astr162/lect/light/i onization.html ]) by energetic starlight. In this case, the star most likely providing the energetic starlight is the bright, hot, bluish Xi Persei, just right of the nebula and above picture center. Fittingly, this composite [ http://www.astro.ca…] picture was made with images from a telescope in California - the 48-inch (1.2-meter) Samuel Oschin Telescope [ http://www.astro.ca…] - taken as a part of the second National Geographic Palomar [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] Observatory Sky Survey [ http://www.astro.ca…].

Caltech [ http://www.astro.ca…], Palomar Observatory [ http://www.astro.ca…], Digitized Sky Survey [ http://archive.stsc…];

Scott Kardel [ mailto: wsk at astro. caltech. edu ]

Milky Way Galaxy

California

Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)

Washington, D.C.

United States of America

Orion

Sun

nebula

New General Catalogue (NGC)

http://antwrp.gsfc.…

SPD-APOD-ap060924