IC 1396 is a very large emission nebula in the constellation Cepheus. It is 3,000 light-years from our Earth. The most famous part of the nebula is a huge dark molecular cloud named the Elephant Trunk Nebula. Its shape was created by a stellar wind. The Elephant Trunk object is just a cut-out of an extensive emission nebula, which is popular in astrophotography.
The Elephant’s Trunk Nebula – IC1396 (HST)
| Telescope | ASA 10″ F/3.6 10N ASTROGRAPH OTA |
| Focal length | 900 mm |
| Mount | G53f |
| Imaging camera | Atik 460EX mono |
| Guiding cameras | Lodestar X2 -Autoguider |
| Guiding optics | ASA 10″- OAG |
| Focal reducers | ASA 3″ Wynne Corrector 0,85x |
| Constellations | crop of the area the Nebula in Cefeus |
| Distance | 3000 light years |
| RA center | 21h 39′ 23″ |
| DEC center | +57°32′ 43″ |
| Location taken | Slovakia |
| Date taken | 10/2020 |
| Pixel scale | 1.04 arcsec/pixel |
| Filters | Astronomik Ha 6nm , Astrodon OIII 5nm, Astrodon SII 5nm, |
| Exposure | 63x600s BIN1 Ha filter 32x1200s BIN2 OIII filter 39x1200s BIN2 SII filter |
| Total exposure | 34 hours |
| Processing software | PixInsight, CCD Inspector |
The processing object IC 1396 was captured using narrowband filters.
(Hydrogen-alpha – H-α 6 nm, Sulfur – SII 6 nm, Oxygen – OIII 5 nm)
Here you see a few hours of individual images, which are processed by joining in Hubble (Narrowband in Hubble Palette). Photos are only gently stretched (CurvesTransformation).
You can see the final product above.
