IC 1396 and The Elephants Trunk Nebula

[jjosefsen]

This is a bicolor image of The Elephants Trunk nebula situated in the much larger star forming region of IC1396.

Was captured in the late summer as the darkness started creeping back into my bright northerly skies.

 

The star forming region of IC1396 is more than 100 lightyears across, but "the trunk" itself is around 20 lightyears long.

The trunk is a column of dust and hydrogen gas which is beautifully backlit by the pale blues of an oxygen gas cloud.

 

Combined exposure of 8.5 hours.

4,5 hours of Hydrogen alpha.

4 hours of Oxygen III.

 

Captured with N.I.N.A, stacked in Astro Pixel Processor, and processed with PixInsight.

 

For the full version (worth a look in my humble opinion) and more details about gear and settings, goto astrobin here: https://www.astrobin.com/full/0rcqpa/B/?real=&mod=

Critique, comments and questions are more than welcome!

 

[alan potts]

A lovely image that I personally feel looks better up the other way, a lot of people have been doing this of late, great shot not over coloured.

Alan

[jjosefsen]

20 minutes ago, alan potts said:

A lovely image that I personally feel looks better up the other way, a lot of people have been doing this of late, great shot not over coloured.

Alan

Thanks.

I tried flipping it, but it just looked so wrong! Maybe because I've been staring at it for hours on end in this orientation while processing.. 🙂

[alan potts]

Either way it is a very good piece of capture work and at the end of the day you must always do what pleases you, I may try one on its side🙃.

Alan

[newbie alert]

Beautiful image..at full resolution it looks even better, fantastic job, very well done and thanks for sharing

[glowingturnip]

yep, full res that's a stunner

[steppenwolf]

Very nice indeed and just goes to prove that you don’t need tens of hours of data to get a great result - nice smooth processing as well,

[jjosefsen]

30 minutes ago, steppenwolf said:

Very nice indeed and just goes to prove that you don’t need tens of hours of dat to get a great result - nice smooth processing as well,

Thank you, much appreciated.

As this is my first real dataaset from a cooled camera, I was pretty blown away by the difference between cooled and uncooled.

[jjosefsen]

6 hours ago, alan potts said:

Either way it is a very good piece of capture work and at the end of the day you must always do what pleases you, I may try one on its side🙃.

Alan

I'm beginning to warm up to the idea of rotating it.. But is it the "correct" way or is it just what most people prefer?

By far the most comments I have received on other media where I shared it, is that people prefer it rotated 180.

[MartinFransson]

It is a very nice image! Yeah, astrophotography becomes even more addicitive with a cooled camera pulling out lots of clean data

[MartinB]

That is a lovely image Johannes.  Very nice colour rendition

[Pompey Monkey]

I really like your rendition.

It also shows that a "budget" telescope can produce excellent results!

[jjosefsen]

19 minutes ago, Pompey Monkey said:

I really like your rendition.

It also shows that a "budget" telescope can produce excellent results!

Thanks!

Yes that little ED80 really does punch above its weight. Although admittedly mine has a little issue with fat stars in the red band, but going mono has helped this.

[HAlfie]

Hello and congrats for the very nice picture! Even the full version has very reasonable noise (especially with CMOS sensor) and stars are very tight :)!!

Colors are perfect in my opinion 🙂!

Edited September 27, 2019 by HAlfie

[MartinFransson]

2 hours ago, jjosefsen said:

Thanks!

Yes that little ED80 really does punch above its weight. Although admittedly mine has a little issue with fat stars in the red band, but going mono has helped this.

But for Lum you still get the problem with fat stars I guess? Since you cant focus the different wavelengths separately.

[jjosefsen]

1 hour ago, MartinFransson said:

But for Lum you still get the problem with fat stars I guess? Since you cant focus the different wavelengths separately.

Yeah I do unfortunately. It's not a huge problem, but enough that I noticed when I was using a DSLR.

But the main reason for fat stars for me is moisture due to the climate here, and my proximity to the sea.

Edited September 27, 2019 by jjosefsen