The Elephant’s Trunk Nebula is a concentration of interstellar gas and dust that emits in multiple wavelengths. It can be located in the Cepheus constellation some 2,400 light years away from Earth.
The main structure shown in this image is known as the Elephant’s Trunk Nebula, IC 1396, an amazing 20 light-years long emission nebulae.
This image shows the Hα, [OIII] and [SII] emissions combined using a different version of the classic Hubble Palette composition. In order to highlight all the emissions from this nebula the colors have been assigned as follows: the sulfur data is assigned to the red channel, a combination of hydrogen and sulfur data to the green channel and the oxygen data to the blue channel.
Broadband filters have been used to give the stars its natural color.
Image Details
Hα: 36×300″
[OIII]: 28×300″
[SII]: 17×300″
RGB: (8,30,30)x120″All images at 120Gain -15ºC bin2
Calibrated with 50 flats, 50 darks, 50 biasTotal exposure: 9h01′
Average darkness: 21 mag/arcsec2
Image resolution: 2.12”/pixel
Equipment
FSQ85ED telescope
Mesu200 mount
ASI294MM Pro camera with ZWO EFW 8 pos
Guiding with ASI174MC and ZWO OAG
Baader filters
Software
SGP, PHD2, APP, PIX, LR, PS, TPZ.
Aleix Roig, July 2021.
Prades (Tarragona, Catalonia – Spain).
This image has been selected as a top pick image on Astrobin:
https://www.astrobin.com/ucck4y/D/
This image has become very popular on Instagram (my account @astrocatinfo ) reaching 4 million accounts in only 7 days with a comparision between the 2016 image and 2021 image of this nebula. The image on sale here is the high quality 2021 original image.