Newtonian image of the elephant's trunk in IC1396 (Tim Hawkes)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Cepheus (Cep)

Newtonian image of the elephant's trunk in IC1396, Tim Hawkes

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Newtonian image of the elephant's trunk in IC1396

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Newtonian image of the elephant's trunk in IC1396

NB HOO starless image with 10% Halpha added into the blue channel to account for the implicit H beta. Since the H alpha image was far stronger than the OIII image and was also geographically coincident the HA was used as luminance for the nebulosity. The HA image was deconvolved before stretching. The NB image was produced using pixmath and the stars removed using StarXterminator 2.03. The NB image was further stretched using exponential transformation and local histogram equalisation. RGB coloured stars from an OSC image were added back in at the end.

The Trunk itself - IC 1396A - is a darker and more opaque concentration of gas and dust within the much larger ionized gas region IC 1396 located in the constellation Cepheus about 2,400 light years away. The bright rim is the surface of the dense cloud that is being illuminated and ionized by a massive star (HD 206267) just to the east (left on the image) which ionizes the entire region save for the gradually eroding denser globules such as IC1396A. Star formation appears to be going on within the trunk with several very young (less than 100,000 yr) stars discovered in infrared images in 2003. Two slightly older (~ 2 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. Light from HD206267 ionizing and compressing the rim of the cloud along with stellar winds from the young stars forming within are thought to combine to further compress the Elephant's Trunk Nebula leading to the generation of yet further protostars and stars in a positive feedback process of erosion.

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Newtonian image of the elephant's trunk in IC1396

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Newtonian image of the elephant's trunk in IC1396

Newtonian image of the elephant's trunk in IC1396

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