IC 1396 Elephant's Trunk Nebula in HOO (Douglas J Struble)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Cepheus (Cep) · Contains: IC 1396

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IC 1396 Elephant's Trunk Nebula in HOO

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IC 1396 Elephant's Trunk Nebula in HOO

IC 1396 is a large and comparatively faint emission nebula and star forming region over 100 light-years across, located about 2,400 light-years away in the constellation Cepheus. It is energized by the bright, bluish central multiple star called HD 206267.

The nebula mixes glowing cosmic gas and dark dust cloud, and there is a scattering of hot stars, quite widely separated from each other, inside the nebula. Among the intriguing dark shapes within IC 1396, is the Elephant’s Trunk nebula (IC 1396A). This is a dense globule of gas and dust of more than 20 light-years long, being eroded by the radiation pressure from HD 206267. It is commonly called the Elephant’s Trunk nebula because of its appearance at visible light wavelengths.

The Elephant’s Trunk nebula is a site of star formation. Over 250 young stars in and around the Elephant’s Trunk are identified. Several very young (less than 100,000 years old) stars and two older (but still young, a 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.

Numerous other such globules of varying size are scattered throughout the nebula. Some of these are positioned between us and the bright clouds of gas, and so appear as inky black silhouettes. These dense globules can protect themselves from the star’s harsh ultraviolet rays.

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Distribution of astrophotographers

This table shows the number of distinct astrophotographers who have been assigned and IOTD/TP award compared to the total number of images awarded.
	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

Distribution of subject types

This table shows the distribution of awards per subject type, compared to the popularity of images of that subject type.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

Distribution of data sources

This table shows the distribution of awards per data source, compared to the popularity of images acquired from that data source.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

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.

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
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.
Promotions by Submitters When 3 distinct Submitters promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for Top Pick status. This requirement, in addition to anonymization of images and distribution to only a subset of them, prevents biases and ensures that the best images are selected.
Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

Status	Basic success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	3251104
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
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IC 1396 Elephant's Trunk Nebula in HOO

IC 1396 Elephant's Trunk Nebula in HOO

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IC 1396 Elephant's Trunk Nebula in HOO

IC 1396 Elephant's Trunk Nebula in HOO

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