Messier 45 and NGC 1499 from Banon in France

During our 2019 holiday in Banon, southern France, I captured several images using my mobile astrophotography setup under beautifully dark skies. One of these was a wide-field image covering the region between the open cluster M45 (the Pleiades) and the emission nebula NGC 1499 (the California Nebula).

This area of the sky is particularly captivating, as it showcases the delicate blue reflection nebulae surrounding M45 alongside the deep red glow of ionized hydrogen in NGC 1499 — a perfect example of the contrasting colors and structures found in the winter Milky Way.

The Raw data conversion was done with Adobe Lightroom, the registration and the final processing was done with PixInsight. The result was as follows:

Here is an overview of the used equipment and the exposure times:

• Date: September 2019
• Location: Banon, France
• Telescope/Lense: Canon 24-105
• Focal length [mm]: 70
• Focal ratio: 4
• Mount: Skywatcher Star Adventurer
• Camera: Canon 6D
• Autoguiding: no
• Filter: OS
• Exposure time [min]: 85 at ISO 1600
• Resolution: 19.15/px