Elephant's Trunk Nebula in IC 1396

Type:

The picture shows the so-called Elephant's Trunk nebula, a concentration of interstellar gas and dust within the much larger ionized gas region IC 1396 located in the constellation Cepheus.

The Elephant's Trunk Nebula is thought to be a site of star formation, containing several very young (less than 100,000 yr old) stars that were discovered in infrared images in 2003. Two older (but still young, a couple of million years, by the standards of stars, which live for billions of years) stars are present in a small, circular cavity in the head of the globule. Winds from these young stars may have emptied the cavity.

Date: October 15-th, 2023 / Moon: 5% (+)

Equipment:

Stellina 80/400, 720x20s (4h), darks, stacked: APP, postproc.: TOPAZ denoise, Affinity Photo, FITSwork