The Elephant's Trunk Nebula

he Elephant's Trunk Nebula (IC 1396A) is a concentration of interstellar gas and dust within the much larger ionized gas region IC 1396 located in the constellation Cepheus about 2,400 light years away from Earth.

 

The nebula is a dark, dense globule that gets its name from its appearance at visible light wavelengths, where there is a dark patch with a bright, sinuous rim. The bright rim is the surface of the dense cloud that is being illuminated and ionized by a very bright, massive multiple star (HD 206267) that is just to the east of the Elephant's Trunk Nebula . The entire IC 1396 region is ionized by the massive star, except for dense globules that can protect themselves from the star's harsh ultraviolet rays.

The Elephant's Trunk Nebula is now thought to be a site of star formation, containing several very young (less than 100,000 yr) stars that were discovered in infrared images in 2003. Two older (but still young, a couple of million years, by the standards of stars, which live for billions of years) stars are present in a small, circular cavity in the head of the globule. Winds from these young stars may have emptied the cavity.

 

This pic is the result of the integration of24x300s. shots (2 hrs. total) taken with a ZWO ASI 533 MC Pro CMOS dedicated deep-sky camera, using a Svbony SV220 dual narrowband filter (Hα and Oiii).

 

Scope: William Optics Zenithstar 61 apochromatic refractor, with a Flat 61 field flattener.

Electronic (auto)focuser: ZWO EAF mini

 

Mount: Skywatcher Staradventurer GTI

Guide scope: Svbony SV165 30mm. scope

Guide camera: ZWO ASI 715MC

Controller: ASIAIR mini

 

Processed through GraXpert, Siril and Photoshop

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