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 the brighter star visible near the top of the image, above the globule. The globule extending up from the bottom of the nebula is IC 1396A. 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 two prominent emissions: Hydrogen Alpha (656.3 nm), and Oxygen III (500.7 nm). I used the Seti Astro Realistic 1 Palette to map these emissions to RGB image channels. The mapping is as follows:

Red: Hydrogen Alpha (656.3 nm)

Green: Oxygen III (500.7 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: Astrocamp, Nerpio, Spain

Telescope: ASA N10 250

Aperture: 250 mm, f/3.6

Focal Length: 900 mm

Camera: Player One Mono 571 CMOS

Filters: Nebula - Halpha, OIII; Stars -RGB

Total Exposure: 22 hours 26 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.