Elephant's Trunk Nebula

This is IC 1396, the Elephant's Trunk Nebula.

IC 1396 is a giant emission nebula that is over 3 degrees in diameter. It is illuminated by a hot, massive O-type star (HD 206267) near its center. The star is visible above and to the left, in this image. Irt is the brighter star. This image is of IC 1396A, the orange, dense cloud of gas embedded in the nebula. It is informally known as the “Elephant's Trunk Nebula” because of its distinctive shape. (NSF NOIRLab)

This image is a narrowband image. Ionized gases in this nebula produce three prominent emissions: Hydrogen Alpha (656.3 nm), Sulfur II (672 nm) and Oxygen III (500.7 nm). I used the Seti Astro Foraxx Palette to map these emissions to RGB image channels. The mapping is as follows:

Red: Sulfur II (672 nm)

Green: Hydrogen Alpha (656.3 nm)

Blue: Oxygen III (500.7 nm)

Bottom line, this mapping communicates the composition of different regions in the nebula. It does not represent the way the nebula appears to our eyes.

Image processed by Andrew Macica, original data from Telescope Live.

Imaging Details:

Observatory: IC Astronomy Observatory, Oria, Almería, Spain

Telescope: Takahashi FSQ-106EDX4

Aperture: 106 mm, w/ 0.73x focal reducer, f/3.6

Focal Length: 382 mm

Camera: FLI ProLine PL16803 CCD

Filters: H-alpha, OIII, SII

Total Exposure: 30 hours 25 minutes

Image Processing:

PixInsight 1.9.3 Lockhart (x64);

BlurXTerminator, NoiseXTerminator, StarXTerminator (RC Astro);

Adobe Photoshop 25.12.4;

Adobe Lightroom Classic 15.3

Instruction on PixInsight from Adam Block Studios.