Elephant's Trunk Nebula IC1396A in SHO

[ramdom]

Hi all, these are my narrowband versions of the IC1396 aka Elephant's Trunk Nebula (technically IC1396A). Acquisition details are at the bottom. I couldn't see this image in Stellarium so I didn't realise how large it was with my FC100DF setup but I was itching to image something with this scope and so I decided to go for it. I was able to capture the Elephant's Trunk region in the greater IC1396 nebula but if I had used my SV70T I'd have gotten the whole thing. I'm still looking for some good targets to image with this scope since I find it to be just the right size to take out the whole setup (with EFW and camera attached) and move it in and then put it back. It's the ideal sized scope (the FS128 is too big especially since I won't be around the entire summer and the SV70T has a nice widefield but it's 30mm less aperture).

I'm now using dso-browser to plan out all my imaging session and hopefully some nice targets will pop up for the FC100DF. In any event, there are two images of the Elephant's Trunk region. The first is my attempt to creating a Hubble-like palette and the second is close to the original SHO (where the Ha looks very green) but I thought it looked good also as is. I'd appreciate comments on which image you prefer and any other comments/criticisms. Unlike my previous images, I dialed back the gain a lot so the stars don't appear as saturated during imaging (but I did end up choosing some bright colours). Thanks for looking!

--Ram

ACQUISITION DETAILS

Elephant's Trunk Nebula IC1396A (c-sho). 

Total integration: 660 minutes/11 hours (48 x 5m for S2/red + 36 x 5m for Ha/green + 48 x 5m for O3/blue).
Camera: QHY163M (16mp mono) CMOS cooled to -15 degrees C.
Telescope: Takahashi FC100DF Steinheil fluorite doublet apochromat refractor @ f/4.9.
Reducer: Takahashi FC-35 2".
Mount: Paramount MyT.
Filters: Astrodon 5nm Ha, 3nm O3, 3nm S2.
Software: Sharpcap, PixInsight, Nebulosity, Photoshop CC.

Images resized to ~20% - full sized images are at: 
http://ram.org/images/space/scope/1...._sho.v0221.jpg
http://ram.org/images/space/scope/1....96_sho.v01.jpg

https://www.astrobin.com/users/ramdom/

[Demonperformer]

Wow! That is ... bright. It looks almost as if it is painted on canvas ... almost surreal. I like it.

 

[MarsG76]

That is colorful.. psychedelic even... great detail...

 

[teoria_del_big_bang]

Beautiful!  Absolutely stunning.

Steve