Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Cepheus (Cep)  ·  Contains:  IC 1396
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IC 1396 - Elephant's Trunk nebula, Doug Summers
IC 1396 - Elephant's Trunk nebula
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IC 1396 - Elephant's Trunk nebula

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
IC 1396 - Elephant's Trunk nebula, Doug Summers
IC 1396 - Elephant's Trunk nebula
Powered byPixInsight

IC 1396 - Elephant's Trunk nebula

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Description

Lying some 2400 light-years distant, the emission region containing IC 1396 contains a large amount of gas and dust.  The feature of the image is the Elephant's trunk, which glows brightly around its edges.  While not often described as a combination emission / reflection nebula, clearly there is some reflection going on as evidenced by this true color rendition that has been SPCC calibrated.  Blue tones are prevalent outside the inner emission area.

This rendition is a bit wider in field than I would normally crop to, and it's also a bit more highly contrasted than usual.  That causes some of the grain to come up.  I will come back to the image in the future to gather more data (which should help the grain).   As for the FOV, I had to decide whether to do a close-up on the trunk, or keep some of the broader dust.   I thought the dust was worth the wider field.  There's a lot going on in this region!

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IC 1396 - Elephant's Trunk nebula, Doug Summers

In these collections

Bright/Dark Nebulae