IC1396 Elephant Trunk Nebula

I am really happy with my latest image of the Elephant trunk nebula (IC 1396). The Elephant's Trunk Nebula 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 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. The combined action of the light from the massive star ionizing and compressing the rim of the cloud, and the wind from the young stars shifting gas from the center outward lead to very high compression in the Elephant's Trunk Nebula. This pressure has triggered the current generation of protostars.

 

Equipment:

Telescope - William Optics Redcat 51

Imaging Camera- Qhy268m

Mount - Sky-watcher EQ6-R Pro

 

Software:

Sequence Generator Pro

Pixinsight

Lightroom

Photoshop

 

Lights:

R-50x30sec

G-50x30sec

B-50x30sec

Sii-40x300sec

Ha-40x300sec

Oiii-40x300sec

 

35 Darks

100 Bias

Total integration 12.5 hours

Done