IC 1396/1396A is also known as The Elephant Trunk Nebula, is an area of bright emission and dark nebulae located 2400 light-years away in the constellation of Cepheus.
This image results from only 3 hours of narrowband data collected on October 13th - and is the first use of my portable Askar FRA400 platform for travel. It was also the first time I had to do PA when I could not see the northern portion of the sky. The details of how I prepared the mount for travel and my use of the mount when I got to my destination can be seen here:
https://cosgrovescosmos.com/tips-n-techniques/going-mobileNorth Carolina is supposed to have good weather but that was not my experience on this trip. After being there for three weeks, I only had a single evening clear and Moon free so that I could do some exposures!
The processing was a bit challenging on this project because of the short integration time and the fact that I ran into some guiding issues that caused elongated stars. But all-in-all, it was a good learning exercise, and despite the problems with collection, I thought the image came out reasonably well.
Full details on the capture and extensive processing notes for this image are available on my website at the link below:
https://cosgrovescosmos.com/projects/ic1396-widefieldPlease check it out and let me know if you have any questions.
Thanks for looking!
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