Elephant Trunk - IC 1396 HSS (Jeff McClure)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Cepheus (Cep) · Contains: B160 · B161 · B162 · B163 · B365 · B367 · Erakis · Erakis (μ Cep) · HD204613 · HD205196 · HD205510 · HD205917 · HD205948 · HD206081 · HD206183 · HD206267 · HD206482 · HD206773 · HD206842 · HD207086 · HD239712 · HD239729 · HD239748 · IC 1396 · LBN 451 · LBN 452 · LBN 455 · LBN 456 · LBN 457 · LDN · And 41 more.

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Elephant Trunk - IC 1396 HSS

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Elephant Trunk - IC 1396 HSS

The "Elephant Trunk" nebula is technically just the elongated dark area in this image's right center. At the same time, IC 1396 is the open star cluster in the center. Still, astronomers have long referred to the ionized, fluorescing area of the vast dark nebula between us and the center of our galaxy excited by the very bright star HD 206267 by that name. In this image, north is to the left, and the bright, reddish star, illuminating the hydrogen cloud between it and us, is Mu Cephei, the Garnet Star is seen in the NE or upper left. Mu Cephei is one of the larger known stars in our galaxy, and occupies a space into which would fit more than 1 billion suns. Note that the dark areas of the image are not the darkness of deep space but rather the surface of an immense molecular that extends far beyond the edges of this image and shields us from what would be a deadly dose of radiation emitted by the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy, Sagittarius A.
This image was captured in the hydrogen-alpha and sulfur II frequencies, with the H-alpha frequency mapped to red and the sulfur II frequency mapped to green.

Please note: The following tables are updated every 24 hours.

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	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	8851705
PixInsight job	TBBUMVBEZHCEBDVNM7NHQ78ZQ347I2BV
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	21h39m44s.74
RA (top/left)	21h44m33s.88
RA (top/right)	21h23m44s.10
RA (bottom/right)	21h35m26s.36
RA (bottom/left)	21h55m50s.62

Dec (center)	+57°38′08″.8
Dec (top/left)	+59°41′40″.7
Dec (top/right)	+57°29′11″.8
Dec (bottom/right)	+55°34′02″.0
Dec (bottom/left)	+57°39′35″.3

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Elephant Trunk - IC 1396 HSS

Elephant Trunk - IC 1396 HSS

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Elephant Trunk - IC 1396 HSS

Elephant Trunk - IC 1396 HSS

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