The California Nebula (NGC 1499) is an
emission nebula located in the constellation Perseus. It is so
named because it appears to resemble the outline of the US State
of California on long exposure photographs. It is almost 2.5°
long on the sky and, because of its very low surface brightness,
it is extremely difficult to observe visually. It can be
observed with a H-Beta filter (isolates the H-Beta line at 486
nm) in a rich-field telescope under dark skies. It lies at a
distance of about 1,000 light years from Earth.
