IC 1396 Region and IC 1396A Elephant Trunk Nebula, Cory Schmitz

IC 1396 Region and IC 1396A Elephant Trunk Nebula

IC 1396 Region and IC 1396A Elephant Trunk Nebula, Cory Schmitz

IC 1396 Region and IC 1396A Elephant Trunk Nebula

Equipment

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Acquisition details

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Description

IC 1396 is a Hydrogen alpha rich region in the constellation Cepheus. It contains the more widely-known nebula IC 1396A, the Elephant's Trunk (right center), which is a concentration of gas and dust that is recently thought to be an area of star formation. The two stars in the dark patch in the middle are older, however. The nebula's shape is caused by ionization and compression from stellar wind of the young stars it contains, pushing outward. [Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant's_Trunk_nebula]

While the region is not that difficult to process in PixInsight (expect for noise and sheer volume of stars), it did require a good amount of capture time and could have used more as it is somewhat dim and requires an IR-sensing camera such as a modded DSLR or CCD.

Total integration time: 112 minutes

28x4m sub exposures

ISO800 f/7.5

Calibration:

25 Dark

25 Flat

25 Flat-dark

30 Bias

Equipment:

Vixen ED80sf 80mm APO refractor

Celestron CG-5 ASGT mount

Orion SSAG autoguider + 50mm guide scope

Canon T2i 550D DSLR (Baader IR modded)

Orion Field Flattener

Software:

Image acquisition with BackyardEOS

Guiding with PHD

Calibration/alignment/integration and post-processing with PixInsight

Comments

Histogram

IC 1396 Region and IC 1396A Elephant Trunk Nebula, Cory Schmitz