View allAll Photos Tagged ElephantTrunkNebula
Elephant Trunk Nebula captured during full moon from Farmoor, Oxford, UK. 21-10-2021.
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. It is commonly called the Elephant's Trunk nebula because of 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 star (HD 206267) that is just to the east of IC 1396A. 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.
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.
4hrs 15mins intergration, 10x480-10x420-10x300 L-Exstreme + 5x600 HA.
WO Z61ii - ASI294MCPro - SWNEQ6-R-Pro - Nina - Stellarium - PH2 - DSS - Photoshop.
The Elephant’s Trunk Nebula is over 20 lightyears long and can be found running through IC 1396, a young star cluster embedded within a cloud of glowing, ionised gas in the Cepheus constellation.
This Nebula is composed of cool interstellar dust and gas, which blocks out light on its way to Earth and leaves behind a long thin silhouette that gives the nebula its name.
The IC 1396 complex is located about 3,000 lightyears away and covers an apparent width of over 10 full Moons in the sky.
Camera : ZWO ASI 533 MC
Main Scope : William Optics Redcat 51
Guide Camera : ZWO ASI 120MM Mini
Guide Scope : ZWO Mini Guide Scope
Mount : Skywatcher AZ GTI
Filter : Optolong L-Extreme
Others : ZWO ASIAIR PRO
Lights : 59 x 300 sec (Total : 4h55)
Darks : 60 ~ Offset: 100 ~ Flats: 100
I’ve done this one before but thought I would give it another go and collect more data. Not totally happy as the data was not obtained under the best condition with some high level cloud and some of the data was so bad I had to scrap it. As a consequence I had to limit my sharpening (using a mask) to only the brighter and more detailed areas.
IC 1396A also commonly known as the “Elephant Trunk Nebula” is a star forming region some 2,400 Light Years from earth. The bright rim is the surface of the dense cloud that is being illuminated and ionized by a bright, massive star. The Nebula is now thought to containing several very young stars less than 100,000 yr old.
EQUIPMENT:-
Telescope Meade 6000 115mm and AZ-EQ6 GT
ZWO ASI1600mm-Cool cmos camera
Orion Mini Auto Guide
Astronomik 12nm Ha Filter
Astronomik 6nm Oiii Filter
Chip Temp Cooled to -20 degC
IMAGING DETAILS:-
IC1396A Elephant Trunk Nebula (Cepheus)
Gain 139 (Unit Gain)
Dithering
35 Ha subs@360sec (3h 30min)
30 Oiii subs@360sec (3h 00min)
Total imaging Time 6h 30min
20 Darks
25 Flats
PROCESSING/GUIDING SOFTWARE:-
APT "Astro Photograph Tools"
DSS
PS CS2
IC 1396, a complex, dynamic region of star formation in the constellation Cepheus also called the Elephant Trunk Nebula for the prominent column left of center. That's a region of denser material being eroded and energized by nearby hot stars. The image was made in the light of hydrogen, from suburban Bloomington, Indiana.
90 total exposures, 6 min. each (total 9 hours) in six overlapping tiles. Explore Scientific ED102 102mm f/7 refractor, 0.8x reducer/flattener, ZWO ASI2600MM Pro monochrome CMOS camera, 7nm H-alpha filter, iOptron CEM25P mount, ASIAir controller, auto-guided. Processed in Astro Pixel Processor and Lightroom.
#Astrophotography #DeepSky
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 piece of the nebula shown here is the dark, dense globule IC 1396A; it is commonly called the Elephant's Trunk nebula because of its appearance at visible light wavelengths, where there is a dark patch with a bright, sinuous rim.
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Acquired on: 21-23-24 June 2020
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Telescope: William Optics GT-81 IV
Camera: ASI1600MM-Cool
Mount: Celestron CGEM-DX
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Filters:
Baader Planetarium Ha - 106x120
Baader Planetarium OIII - 100x120
Baader Planetarium SII - 85x120
Total integration: 9h 42min
Sky Darkness = Bortle 7
The Elephant Trunk and the Garnet star in a NB HOO palate. Taken from Austin Texas, 2021-09-19 05:36UT. Bortle 7 urban sky with a 96% illuminated moon.
My first cut at rendering my first light data with the ZWO ASIAIR Plus astro controller. WO RedCat 250/51mm telescope, L-eNhance dual NB filter,ASI533MC cooled OSC camera, SW AZ-EQ 5 mount.
Three hours of exposure 62 3' lights, processed in PixInsight, StarXterminator, NoiseXterminator, and Photoshop.
We can see green trace of drifting comet C/2014 E2 Jackues near the left edge. Here is an image of the comet taken just after this.
www.flickr.com/photos/hiroc/15178257005/
equipment: Zeiss Aposonnar 135mmF2 and Canon EOS 5Dmk2-sp2, modified by Seo-san on Takahashi EM-200 Temma 2 Jr, autoguided with Takahashi FSQ-106ED, hiro-design off-axis guider, SX Lodestar Autoguider, and PHD Guiding
exposure: 6 times x 20 minutes, 5 x 15 min, 5 x 4 min, and 4 x 1 minute at ISO 1,600 and f/3.2
site: 11,000 feet above sea level near Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii
3-panel mosaic, 20 300 sec. and 71 360 sec. exposures. Explore Scientific ED102 102mm f/7 refractor, ZWO ASI294MC cooled camera, H-alpåha 7nm filter, iOptron CEM25P mount, auto-guided, ASIAir controller. Processed in Astro Pixel Processor and Lightroom.
Ha: 6 hrs, bin1, 900s & 1200s subs
SII: 2 hrs, bin2, 1200s subs
OIII: 2 hrs, bin2, 1200s subs
Imaging camera: Atik 314L+
Imaging scope: Orion EON80ED
Guide camera: StarlightXPress Lodestar
Guide scope: Celestron CPC800
Filters: Astronomik Ha, SII, OIII
Calibrated and stacked in Nebulosity, Processed in Photoshop CS2
used a combination of tone-mapping and my regular processing routines then mapped out the channels into the Hubble Palette (SII=Red, Ha=Green, OIII=Blue), then used an SII & OIII enhanced Ha for Luminosity
When radiation and winds from massive young stars impact clouds of cool gas, they can trigger new generations of stars to form. This is what may be happening in this object known as the Elephant Trunk Nebula (or its official name of IC 1396A). X-rays from Chandra (purple) have been combined with optical (red, green, and blue) and infrared (orange and cyan) to give a more complete picture of this source
Read entire captions/view all images: www.chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2013/archives/more.html
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/PSU/Getman et al, Optical: DSS, Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Caption credit: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Read more about Chandra:
p.s. You can see all of our Chandra photos in the Chandra Group in Flickr at: www.flickr.com/groups/chandranasa/ We'd love to have you as a member!
_____________________________________________
These official NASA photographs are being made available for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photographs. The photographs may not be used in materials, advertisements, products, or promotions that in any way suggest approval or endorsement by NASA. All Images used must be credited. For information on usage rights please visit: www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelin...
Northfield, OH
Another try at tracking (Star Adventurer)
lights: 26 x 90 sec @ ISO 200
darks: 33 bias: 44, flats: 32
processed in Pixinsight and Photoshop
Open star Cluster IC 1396 is embedded in an emission nebula that contains the so called Elephant Trunk Nebula IC 1396A.
Der offene Sternhaufen IC 1396 ist in einenEmissionsnebel eingebettet, der den so genannten Elefantenrüsselnebel IC 1396A enthält.
36 x 300s @ ISO 800, Pentax K3ii unmod., TS APO 80/480 + Pentax HD TX 1,4x (F8.4)
One of the objects I was able to photograph last night with some unusually clear sky after many cloudy nights, despite it being quite near the horizon. This is one of the more colorful regions of the Milky Way, called the Rho Ophiuchi nebula after the bright star within the blue cloud near the top. The brighter red star near the bottom is the brightest star in the constellation Scorpius called Antares, the Heart of the Scorpion. Much of the region is filled with dust, reflecting the light of nearby stars as well as some gas, mostly hydrogen, glowing because it's energized by the nearby hot stars.
Tech: 12 300 sec. exposures, Nikon 80-200mm f/2.8 lens @200mm, ZWO ASI294MC camera, iOptron CEM25P mount, processed in Astro Pixel Processor and Adobe Lightroom.
Editor's note: Amazing new images from Chandra. I'll be adding these to the stream one at a time over the next week, so stay tuned!
To celebrate American Archive Month 2013 this October, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory released eight never-before-seen images from its archive. The Chandra Data Archive plays a central role in the Chandra mission by enabling the astronomical community - as well as the greater public - access to data collected by the observatory.
Read entire captions/view all images: www.chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2013/archives/more.html
Image credit: NASA/CXC/SAO
Caption credit: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Read more about Chandra:
p.s. You can see all of our Chandra photos in the Chandra Group in Flickr at: www.flickr.com/groups/chandranasa/ We'd love to have you as a member!
_____________________________________________
These official NASA photographs are being made available for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photographs. The photographs may not be used in materials, advertisements, products, or promotions that in any way suggest approval or endorsement by NASA. All Images used must be credited. For information on usage rights please visit: www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelin...
Last night's venture into space from the garden in Salisbury. Things were progressing well until, at 1:30am, the clouds rolled in and the heavens opened, cutting short my session. With only half the data (18 shots, each 31/2 min long) I was hoping for, and no time to collect calibration frames, I am quite pleased by how this came out.
My first photo of the Elephant's Trunk Nebula (a concentration of interstellar gas and dust) and Garnet Star (large red star top left), within the much larger ionized gas region IC 1396 located in the constellation Cepheus about 2400 light years away from Earth.
The Garnet Star is 1000 times larger and 100000 times brighter than the Sun!
WO Z61, Flat 61, Nikon D7000 modified, HEQ5 Pro unguided, Optolong L-eNhance filter, 18 x 3.5min lights, ISO 1000, no calibration frames due to rain. Processed in DSS and PS with final touches in LR.
IC1396 is a huge gas cloud in the constellation of Cygnus. The hydrogen gas is ionized by a the UV light radiated by a young massive star (center of the picture). It compresses gas in some regions thus forming new stars. This is the case in the 'elephant trunk' located below the central bright star.
Stack of 35 shots 180 s long
Telescope: C11-HD mounted on a G11 and equipped with a hyperstar at F2
Camera QHY12C cooled at -30°C
Fujifilm X-T10, Samyang 135mm f/2.0 @ f2.0, ISO 1600, 60 x 60 sec, tracking with iOptron SkyTracker Pro, stacking with DeepSkyStacker, editing in GIMP, taken July 30 under Bortle 3/4 skies.
Reprocessed Aug. 2 without using a luminance layer, to keep emission nebulae red; I like the colors much better now and the Seahorse Nebula also pops better in this version. I decided several months ago to use luminance layers in processing after getting some nice results, but after reprocessing several images without luminance and getting better color results, I'm thinking using a luminance layer is now the exception rather than the rule for me.
A region of star formation 2400 light-years from Earth. The Elephant's Trunk itself is the long dark structure just to the bottom-left of centre in this image. It is part of a much larger nebula called IC1396, which fills the frame.
* May and June 2021
* Bristol, UK (Bortle 8 )
* Telescope: Askar FRA400 f/5.6 Quintuplet APO Astrograph
* Camera: ZWO ASI 2600MC-PRO
* Filter: Optolong L-eXtreme
* Mount: Orion Sirius EQ-G
* Guide: William Optics 32mm; ZWO ASI 120MM Mini
* Control: ASIAIR PRO
* Software: PixInsight, Photoshop, Lightroom, Topaz DeNoise AI
* 480 x 120 seconds
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Total integration time: 16 hours
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By Lee Pullen
My most detailed image of IC-1396 to date! The "Elephant's Trunk" Nebula Complex.
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, this is a massive star formation region.
Taken from my backyard observatory in Dayton, in Narrow Band, 120 min in HA, 125 min in S2, 115min in O3, for a total of 6 hour exposure, over 3 nights from 09-17, 09-20, & 09-22 of 2017.
Best Regards,
John Chumack
15x210sec subs, darks, flat, bias
Canon 7D Astrodon Inside
70-200mm f2.8 L @ 200mm f3.5
ISO 1600
Asrtonomik CLS filter
Astrotrac unguided
I wish I had better centered the nebula, but I was in a hurry before clouds came in...
Fujifilm X-T10 + Fujinon XF 18-55 f/2.8-4 @ 18mm and f/4, ISO 3200, tracking with iOptron SkyTracker Pro, stacking with DeepSkyStacker, editing in GIMP, taken May 8.
This is a 2 x 2 mosaic of tracked 90 sec. exposures for the sky, and untracked exposures for the trees. I stacked 2 exposures for each sky panel to reduce noise, and then combined the 4 panels manually in GIMP.
I was aiming to capture the Cygnus nebulae on the right; the inclusion of the Heart and Soul Nebulae and the Double Cluster in Perseus on the left was a happy accident. The light trail at the top is an airplane.
It's a huge mess if you pixel peep, but I like the overall impression, and am glad I came away with something for the lost sleep, and considering that I forgot the part to attach my camera to my ballhead and had to use rubber bands.
I finally finished the processing in bicolor HOO (Natural Color Blend) of the Elephant's Trunk Nebula.
HOO palette is created by using narrowband filters to acquire data and assigning the data captured to one of the red, green and blue colors in an RGB image. For this palette the Hydrogen Alpha is assigned to Red, a mix of Oxygen and Hydrogen Alpha to Green and Oxygen to Blue.
Tecnosky SLD80mm (FL: 480mm) Apo Triplet Owl Series
ZWO ASI294MM Pro Cooled Camera
Tecnosky Flattener/Reducer 0.8X
ZWO EWF 7x36
Pegasus Astro Pocket Powerbox Advance
Pegasus Astro FocusCube 2
Antlia 3.5nm Ha Filter 36mm unmounted
Antlia 3.5nm OIII Filter 36mm unmounted
Skywatcher EQ6R-PRO
Integration:
- Ha 50x300s
- OIII 21x300s
Calibration:
- Darks 20
- DarkFlats 40
- Flats 40
Shot over 3 nights from June 16 to June 18 2021 from my home balcony in Ragusa, Italy (Bortle 6)
Astrobin Full Res Link: www.astrobin.com/j5z42j/
I finally managed to get H-Alpha narrowband data for both Luminance and Red channels. I had Green and Blue channels from my previous shot.
Green and Blue : 21x4mn subs, darks, flats, bias using CLS filter
Luminance and Red : 21x4mn subs, darks, flats, bias using H-Alpha 12nm filter.
Canon 7D Astrodon Inside
Lens : Canon EF 28mm f1.8 @ f4.0
ISO 800
Astrotrac unguided
Stacked in DSS, processed in Photoshop.
I had not figured out before I did it how tough it was to focus with the H-Alpha filter and such a wide-angle lens... Stars were nearly invisible...
7hours of total exposition in Hubble palette. 3hours of Hydrogen alpha, 3 hours of Oxygen3 and an hour of Sulfur2. The subs were 300seg.
Object Details: The Elephant Trunk Nebula (catalogue as IC 1396A and vdB 142) is a 20 light-year long dense concentration of gas and dust within a larger nebula & star forming region known as IC 1396 which lies approximately 3000 light-years from Earth. Located in the constellation of Cepheus, the entire nebulous complex spans over 5 degrees in our sky, with the attached image being about 1/2 degree wide (approx. the width of the Full Moon).
Image Details: The attached was taken on September 21, 2020 by Jay Edwards at the HomCav Observatory using a vintage 1970, 8-inch, f/7 Criterion newtonian reflector and an unmodded Canon 700D (t5i) DSLR controlled by APT.
Being my first attempt to image this object; it is a short test consisting of only 31 one-minute, unfiltered exposures at ISO 1600. The scope was tracked using a Losmandy G-11 running a Gemini 2 control system, and guided with an ASI290MC in a 80mm, f/6 Celestron 'short-tube' refractor controlled by PHD2. Given the very short total integration time and the use of an unmodded & unfiltered DSLR, I was fairly pleased with the result and am looking forward to trying a deeper shot of this object in the future.
Processed in a combination of PI & PSP, as presented here the attached has been re-sized down to HD resolution and the bit depth lowered to 8 bits per channel.
I also simultaneously imaged it using an Orion ED80T CF (i.e. and 80mm, f/6 carbon-fiber triplet apochromatic refractor) connected to a 0.8x Televue field flattener / focal reducer and a second twin, unmodded, unfiltered, Canon 700D; which is piggybacked on the 8-inch newt, along with the guide scope. Although I have not yet had a chance to process those images, given that rig's wider field-of-view it should be interesting to see how much of the entire nebula complex I was able to capture.
The Elephant's Trunk Nebula
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A region of star formation 2400 light-years from Earth. This photo was taken with a new telescope, mount, and filters. A bold new era awaits!
More details: urbanastrophotography.com/index.php/2022/10/19/the-elepha...
101 fifty sec subs were used from 7-3 and 7-5-25 to create this 84 minute integration. A truly fascinating back-lit dark nebula.
Link to full resolution
www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/sfihmf6rryktopzzenq7r/ic1396.jpg?r...
Equipment
Astrotech AT8IN, Televue Paracorr 2, Orion Atlas Pro Az-Eq G, Orion 50mm Guide Scope, QHY5III678M guide camera, Ogma AP26CC cooled camera
Software
Astro Photography Tool, PHD2, Stellarium, EQMOD, Siril, GraXpert
IC1396A is part of the larger region of ionized gas IC1396 in the constellation Cepheus. It is a star forming region around 2,400 light years from Earth.
This image was taken with an Askar 151PHQ telescope and an ASI533MC Pro camera on a ZWO AM5 mount. It consists of 2 hours 44 minutes of two minute exposures, processed in Pixinsight.
We can see green trace of drifting comet C/2014 E2 Jackues near the left edge. Here is an image of the comet taken just after this.
www.flickr.com/photos/hiroc/15178257005/
equipment: Zeiss Aposonnar 135mmF2 and Canon EOS 5Dmk2-sp2, modified by Seo-san on Takahashi EM-200 Temma 2 Jr, autoguided with Takahashi FSQ-106ED, hiro-design off-axis guider, SX Lodestar Autoguider, and PHD Guiding
exposure: 6 times x 20 minutes, 5 x 15 min, 5 x 4 min, and 4 x 1 minute at ISO 1,600 and f/3.2
site: 11,000 feet above sea level near Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii
Last night was a comedy of errors and frustration. As I was beginning to capture my composition frames on this target, I discovered my LX200 had gone out of collimation. That wiped an hour of valuable imaging time away as I then spent that next hour frustratingly getting my collimation back - or at least back to the point where I could begin imaging again.
After that, I began capturing all my lights. After about an hour and 10 minutes, I began to see flashes of lightning in the distance (as well as the fact that the sky went from almost 90% transparent to less than 30% in virtually no time) so I ended the run, and packed it in.
In all, I was able to capture 125 usable light frames, then stacked them with 50 darks and flats, and 25 bias.
Captured using a Nikon D5100 DSLR, coupled to a 10" Meade LX200 Classic, f/6.3 Wide Field.
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.[1] The piece of the nebula shown here is the dark, dense globule IC 1396A; it is commonly called the Elephant's Trunk nebula because of 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 star (HD 206267) that is just to the east of IC 1396A. 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.
OBJECT: IC1396A Elephant Trunk Nebula
Scope: SVX130T +reducer 677mm f/5.25
Camera: ASI2600MC
Mount: EQ6R
Filters: L-Extreme
Moon Phase: 48% waxing - not much of a factor
Lights: 100 @ 120” 100 gain -10deg
Darks: 30 @ 120” Library
Flats: 30 @ 2.5”
Dark Flats: 30 @ 2.5”
The Elephant Trunk Nebula is an active star forming region in the larger emission nebula IC1396. Shown in specific wavelengths of ionized Sulfur, Halpha and OIII, the false color image shows the various gas regions.
Combined as a Hubble Palette (SHO). More time with this one would reduce the noise and give a smoother image. With narrowband, long total exposure time is the key.
Imaging scope: Astro-Tech 65 Quadruplet
Imaging Camera: ST8300M (capture with Equinox Image)
Filters: Baader filters in FW5-8300 filter wheel
Guide scope: Astro-Tech 106mm Triplet
Guide camera: Starfish Fishcamp (guided with PHD)
Mount: Atlas EQ-G
Calibrated in Equinox Image and processed in PixInsight.
SII - 9x10min (3x3)
Halpha - 17x5min (2x2)
OIII - 9x10min (2x2)
IC1396 -- Elephant Trunk Nebula
Subject: IC1396 -- Elephant Trunk nebula
Image FOV = 3.25 degrees by 2 degrees 35 minutes (195 by 155 minutes)
Image Scale = 10 arc-second/pixel
Date: 2008/10/04 (Ha) 2008/10/23 (RGB)
Location: near Halcottsville, NY
Exposure: RGB -- 9 x 10 minutes; Ha -- 18 x 10 minutes = 4h30m total exposure, ISO800, f/4.8
Filter: RGB -- IDSA LPS filter; Ha -- Baader 7nm H-alpha filter
Camera: Hutech-modified Canon 30D
Telescope: SV80S 80mm f/6 + TV TRF-2008 0.8X reducer/flattener = 384mm FL, f/4.8
Mount: Astro-Physics AP900
Guiding: ST-402 autoguider and SV66 guidescope. MaximDL autoguiding software using 6-second guide exposures
Processing: Raw conversion and calibration with ImagesPlus; Aligning and combing with Registar; Levels, curves, cropping/resizing, Gray conversion JPEG conversion with Photoshop CS. No sharpening or noise reduction.
Combined red channel = Max(dimmed RGB red, H-alpha red channel)
Combined green channel = Max(dimmed RGB green channel, 0.20 * H-alpha red channel)
Combined blue channel = Max(dimmed RGB blue channel, 0.33 * H-alpha red channel).
Remarks: RGB -- Temperature at start/end: 30F/24F, SQM-L reading at start/end = 21.27/21.30; H-alpha -- Temperature at start/end: 28F/29F, SQM-L reading at start/end = 21.26/21.29
Out of this world public domain images from NASA. All original images and many more can be found from the NASA Image Library
Higher resolutions with no attribution required can be downloaded: www.rawpixel.com/board/418580/nasa
The Elephant Trunk Nebula (IC 1396A) is the most obvious dark globule in the Emission Nebula IC 1396. It is 40 light-years in length and approximately 5 light-years across at its widest. It is estimated to be at a distance of 2,610 light-years.
Photo taken with a ZWO Seestar S50 by stacking 10 second images for 85 minutes from my suburban backyard.
This dusty region of the sky called IC1396 in the constellation Cepheus, is hiding a very bright massive star that is causing this silhouette that is unofficially called the Elephant Trunk Nebula. It looks to me more like a fire-breathing dragon swooping down towards the bright star at the lower right.
Technical details:
telescope: Ceravolo300 at f/9
Camera: SBIG STX 16803
Filters: Astrodo RGB Ha Hb OIII
Total 42 hours
Location: Personal observatory, BC, Canada
IC 1396 including the Elephant Trunk Nebula as seen from the back yard at the end of August into September.
This is the sum of a large stack of sub exposures - 66 frames at 1200 seconds at 100 ISO - for a total of 22 hours of integration.
Polar alignment could have been better for the session, but it was OK enough once stacked.
This target is much larger than the full field of view with the SV4 scope and the APSC sensor of the DSLR. A mosaic would be best to show the full detail. A mosaic would require at least 8 more frames to show the proper area. This may be a major effort lasting several seasons.
Standard setup:
Stellarvue SV4 scope
Modified and cooled Pentax K10D camera
SSF6 flattener
Baader UV/IR filter with IDAS LPS2
Stellarvue SV70ED Guidescope with SSAG
Losmandy G11 with Gemini 2
Major change to the previous hardware config was the use of the DSBS side by side platform. This lowered the center of gravity of the system. Also, I moved the counterweights as far up the shaft as possible, reducing the moment of inertia of the system. These helped to improve the tracking significantly. I also added a stiff dovetail bar that fully extended past the base of the DSLR, finally removing all flexure from the system.
Calibration was done in Maxim using sets for each night for flats. Stacking in DSS using Median Kappa Sigma stacking. In the past, I've used KS clipping and that has left a fair amount of noise. I will try the MKS and see how it goes.
Stretched in Pix Insight: DBE, Masked Stretch script, Histogram Stretch to reset black point, Masked TGVDenoise, and Curves to increase contrast.
Here's the platesolve result:
=======================================================
Referentiation Matrix (Gnomonic projection = Matrix * Coords[x,y]):
-1.56006e-006 +0.000529752 -0.692199
-0.000529579 -1.52832e-006 +1.05242
+0 +0 +1
Projection origin.. [1983.489450 1312.487627]pix -> [RA:+21 39 18.50 Dec:+57 27 57.47]
Resolution ........ 1.907 arcsec/pix
Rotation .......... -89.842 deg
Focal ............. 656.61 mm
Pixel size ........ 6.07 um
Field of view ..... 2d 6' 4.3" x 1d 23' 25.4"
Image center ...... RA: 21 39 18.505 Dec: +57 27 57.45
Image bounds:
top-left ....... RA: 21 34 00.498 Dec: +58 30 41.19
top-right ...... RA: 21 34 15.578 Dec: +56 24 40.51
bottom-left .... RA: 21 44 39.317 Dec: +58 30 26.31
bottom-right ... RA: 21 44 18.716 Dec: +56 24 26.48
=======================================================
Subject: IC1396 -- Elephant Trunk nebula
Image FOV = 3.33 by 2.25 degrees (200 by 135 minutes)
Image Scale = 10 arc-second/pixel
Date: 2008/10/23
Location: near Halcottsville, NY
Exposure: 9 x 10 minutes = 1h30m total exposure, ISO800, f/4.8
Filter: IDAS LPS filter
Camera: Hutech-modified Canon 30D
Telescope: SV80S 80mm f/6 + TV TRF-2008 0.8X reducer/flattener = 384mm FL, f/4.8
Mount: Astro-Physics AP900
Guiding: ST-402 autoguider and SV66 guidescope. MaximDL autoguiding software using 6-second guide exposures
Processing: Raw conversion and calibration with ImagesPlus; Aligning and combing with Registar; Levels, curves, cropping/resizing, JPEG conversion with Photoshop CS. No sharpening or noise reduction.
Remarks: Temperature at start/end: 30F/24F, SQM-L reading at start/end = 21.27/21.30
IC 1396 including the Elephant Trunk Nebula as seen from the back yard at the end of August into September.
This is the sum of a large stack of sub exposures - 66 frames at 1200 seconds at 100 ISO - for a total of 22 hours of integration.
Polar alignment could have been better for the session, but it was OK enough once stacked.
This target is much larger than the full field of view with the SV4 scope and the APSC sensor of the DSLR. A mosaic would be best to show the full detail. A mosaic would require at least 8 more frames to show the proper area. This may be a major effort lasting several seasons.
Standard setup:
Stellarvue SV4 scope
Modified and cooled Pentax K10D camera
SSF6 flattener
Baader UV/IR filter with IDAS LPS2
Stellarvue SV70ED Guidescope with SSAG
Losmandy G11 with Gemini 2
Major change to the previous hardware config was the use of the DSBS side by side platform. This lowered the center of gravity of the system. Also, I moved the counterweights as far up the shaft as possible, reducing the moment of inertia of the system. These helped to improve the tracking significantly. I also added a stiff dovetail bar that fully extended past the base of the DSLR, finally removing all flexure from the system.
Calibration was done in Maxim using sets for each night for flats. Stacking in DSS using Median Kappa Sigma stacking. In the past, I've used KS clipping and that has left a fair amount of noise. I will try the MKS and see how it goes.
Stretched in Pix Insight: DBE, Masked Stretch script, Histogram Stretch to reset black point, Masked TGVDenoise, and Curves to increase contrast.
Here's the platesolve result:
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Referentiation Matrix (Gnomonic projection = Matrix * Coords[x,y]):
-1.56006e-006 +0.000529752 -0.692199
-0.000529579 -1.52832e-006 +1.05242
+0 +0 +1
Projection origin.. [1983.489450 1312.487627]pix -> [RA:+21 39 18.50 Dec:+57 27 57.47]
Resolution ........ 1.907 arcsec/pix
Rotation .......... -89.842 deg
Focal ............. 656.61 mm
Pixel size ........ 6.07 um
Field of view ..... 2d 6' 4.3" x 1d 23' 25.4"
Image center ...... RA: 21 39 18.505 Dec: +57 27 57.45
Image bounds:
top-left ....... RA: 21 34 00.498 Dec: +58 30 41.19
top-right ...... RA: 21 34 15.578 Dec: +56 24 40.51
bottom-left .... RA: 21 44 39.317 Dec: +58 30 26.31
bottom-right ... RA: 21 44 18.716 Dec: +56 24 26.48
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