VdB142 - The Elephant Trunk Nebula (Christophe Perroud)

VdB142 - The Elephant Trunk Nebula

Hi friends,
It has been a long time since I posted a new image here on AB. Few things around, other social media, well...it's time to be back with a first bunch of images taken last summer 2022

Let's start with a close-up into IC1396 and its main feature : VdB142, the Elephant Trunk Nebula. This beautiful structure of interstellar gas and dust is part of a larger nebula in the constellation Cepheus, about 2'500 I-y away from our home. The Trunk extends itself some 20 I-y across the nebula and seems to grab the central massive star (HD 206267) like an elephant's appendice would do with a peanut in our hand. In the heart of this bright nebula lies an open cluster ionizing the gas all around and shaping it in different artistic way or animal-like mimic.
This nebula is really photogenic but hard to observe through a telescope. Darker location and Olll filter would probably help but I never try it ;-)
For this image, I was using some new processes found on great tutorials by other astrophotographers. It was very funny to try something new such this interpretation of a SHO palette….at least to my taste! And you, what do you thing ? ;-)

Clear skies,
Christophe

CMOS Imagers
ASI533MC Pro
Imagers of Switzerland
The refractors!

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