California Nebula

Inspired by Soumyadeep Mukherjee's very creative 'landscape' treatment of the California Nebula, I have adapted this image to look like an intra galactic seascape with Xi Persei rising above the horizon. The California Nebula is found in the Orion Arm of our Milky Way galaxy, and has been given its informal nickname because its shape resembles the outline of the US state of California (but not so much when you rotate the image).

The California Nebula can be seen from Earth in the Perseus constellation, which just so happens to be the radiant of one of the most prolific annual meteor showers seen from Earth, the Perseid meteor shower.

Scotty Bishop's article on HDR processing with multiple stretches in PI to feed the HDR Pro merge in PS was the key to teasing out the extra blue detail - thanks Scotty