IC 1396 - Elephant Trunk (Michel Makhlouta)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Cepheus (Cep) · Contains: VdB142

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IC 1396 - Elephant Trunk

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IC 1396 - Elephant Trunk

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 now thought to be a site of star formation, containing several very young (less than 100,000 years) stars. Two older (couple of million 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.

Source: Wikipedia

I usually keep the astrophysics part short and brief, but it wasn't easy to summarize the Wikipedia article further than that. There's a lot of interesting activity happening in that portion of the sky. I revisit this target with longer focal length, focusing on the trunk itself only.

Clear skies, and stay safe.

The refractors!
Skywatcher Esprit ED Super APO Triplet
Narrowband imaging
ZWO ASI1600MM/QHY163M

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The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

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Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	4973994
PixInsight job	KHHI7GZOITYN77X0XUXLF0NA0NPMVLX7
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

RA (center)	21h33m58s.445
RA (top/left)	21h38m01s.966
RA (top/right)	21h38m07s.620
RA (bottom/right)	21h29m49s.289
RA (bottom/left)	21h29m54s.781

Dec (center)	+57°30′15″.99
Dec (top/left)	+57°04′59″.46
Dec (top/right)	+57°55′01″.74
Dec (bottom/right)	+57°55′02″.35
Dec (bottom/left)	+57°04′59″.99

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IC 1396 - Elephant Trunk

IC 1396 - Elephant Trunk

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IC 1396 - Elephant Trunk

IC 1396 - Elephant Trunk

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