Elephant's Trunk Nebula

IC 1396 is a large and fascinating gas ionized region in constellation Cepheus, 3000 light years from Earth. Among the intriguing dark structures in the interior of IC1396, the Elephant's Trunk Nebula certainly stands out.

The nebula is so named because of its appearance at visible light wavelengths. Also known as vdB 142, this cosmic elephant's trunk is over 20 light-years, and it is thought to be a star forming region.

The image is taken with narrowband filters: Halpha, S II and O III. The colours have been mapped according to the so-called Hubble palette, SII assigned to red, Halpha to green and OIII to blue, but with some modifications:

As the recorded signal level of Sulphur was really low, I also introduced some Alpha in the red channel.

Secondly, the final colour balance was adjusted with different tools, mainly with the NarrowbandNormalization module, to suit my personal (and subjective) taste. 

Image taken with TOA-150 and STL-11000M. Additional images were taken with the FSQ-106N setup for the colour of the stars (RGB).

Click on the image for a full resolution version, or go to the Gallery section for complete exposure details.

Image processing: Pixinsight.

Observatory automation and remote operation with Talon6..