IC 1396 Elephant's Trunk Nebula

[Adam1234]

Hi all. I'd like to share attempt at IC 1396, the famous 'Elephant's Trunk Nebula' located in Cepheus. It was tough processing at first (my first go at processing was awful and was discarded but at least served as a benchmark for improvement), but I now have some images that I'm happy with.

The stars were a bit difficult to handle, as from the off I had some halos around the brighter stars and even some of the less brighter ones, and attempting to remove them with Starnet++ just made things worse so I just tried to do the best with the stars as I could in processing.

60 x 5min subs (5 hr total) for each Sii, Ha and Oiii filter (15 hours total exposure) + darks, flats, dark flats. Taken using SW 80ED DS Pro and ASI1600mm Pro on SW EQ6-R Pro, captured using APT, guiding using PHD2, stacked in Siril and processed in Photoshop. 

I've made a few different versions, hope you like, critique and suggestions for improvement welcome.

 

SHO -  (R = 75% Sii, 25% Ha, G = 85% Ha, 15% Sii; B = 100% Oiii)

 

HOO -  (R = 75% Ha, 25% Sii; G = 100% Oiii; B = 100% Oiii) - I think

 

HSO 

 

 

HOS

 

Thanks for looking

Adam

Edited September 25, 2020 by Adam1234

[Xiga]

Very nice indeed Adam. I find IC 1396 a hard one to settle on a colour balance, but i really like your SHO version. 

[Adam1234]

6 minutes ago, Xiga said:

Very nice indeed Adam. I find IC 1396 a hard one to settle on a colour balance, but i really like your SHO version. 

Thanks very much!!

[Uranium235]

The humble 80ED, still punching well above its price tag all these years later  

[geeklee]

Lovely SHO (and HOO) version Adam - Great detail and depth, especially in the "trunk". 

[Adam1234]

9 hours ago, geeklee said:

Lovely SHO (and HOO) version Adam - Great detail and depth, especially in the "trunk". 

Thanks!

[TerryMcK]

I like all of them. The SHO ones really pop though. The trunk is showing up really well.

[MarkAR]

Excellent work Adam, always nice to see other colour combinations.

Edited September 26, 2020 by MarkAR

[Adam1234]

5 hours ago, MarkAR said:

Excellent work Adam, always nice to see other colour combinations.

Thanks, glad you like

[symmetal]

Great images Adam. 😀 Especially the SHO. I've only recently started full NB imaging having previously just done Ha along with LRGB. Now having the dual rig ZS61 setup with a OSC for RGB I've put the full Baader narrowband set in the 1600's 5 position filter wheel, including Hb.

I took some images of the same target last week when there were a few clear nights but haven't processed them yet. O3 looked good though there's a halo around the bright star. Common with the cheaper O3 filters it seems. I couldn't see any detail in the S2 subs so stopped after 3 600s exposures, and tried Hb which gave more significant detail. How much does the S2 add? I'll have to see what the Hb adds colour wise compared to the Ha and O3. 🙂

Now I have the ASI6200 as well with 7 Astrodon filters on the FLT98, I'll have to see how they compare to the Baader ones. 😀

Alan 

[Adam1234]

1 hour ago, symmetal said:

Great images Adam. 😀 Especially the SHO. I've only recently started full NB imaging having previously just done Ha along with LRGB. Now having the dual rig ZS61 setup with a OSC for RGB I've put the full Baader narrowband set in the 1600's 5 position filter wheel, including Hb.

I took some images of the same target last week when there were a few clear nights but haven't processed them yet. O3 looked good though there's a halo around the bright star. Common with the cheaper O3 filters it seems. I couldn't see any detail in the S2 subs so stopped after 3 600s exposures, and tried Hb which gave more significant detail. How much does the S2 add? I'll have to see what the Hb adds colour wise compared to the Ha and O3. 🙂

Now I have the ASI6200 as well with 7 Astrodon filters on the FLT98, I'll have to see how they compare to the Baader ones. 😀

Alan 

Thanks Alan. Both Oiii and Sii were very faint, but it was there, and I had to gently coax it out by stretching before combining as the Ha was too overpowering. 

I think the Sii was slightly stronger than the Oiii but I'll have to check when I'm on my laptop and let you know. I think the Sii was responsible for the more reddish colours around the base of the trunk

[Rustang]

Keep coming back to this!, stunning mate 👍

[teoria_del_big_bang]

6 minutes ago, Rustang said:

Keep coming back to this!, stunning mate 👍

I am not surprised they are stunning images.  

I have started keeping some images that I consider a standard to aim for and if you have no objections Adam I would like to take a screen shot of one of these and maybe one day I will get a an image half as good as these.

Well done they are great images (all of them) 🙂 

Steve

[Rustang]

4 minutes ago, teoria_del_big_bang said:

I am not surprised they are stunning images.  

I have started keeping some images that I consider a standard to aim for and if you have no objections Adam I would like to take a screen shot of one of these and maybe one day I will get a an image half as good as these.

Well done they are great images (all of them) 🙂 

Steve

I did that for my latest Andromeda, picked a few that I felt looked more natural to go by and then added my own little interpretation! ☺️

[Adam1234]

18 minutes ago, Rustang said:

Keep coming back to this!, stunning mate 👍

Thanks mate! Much appreciated!

[Adam1234]

7 minutes ago, teoria_del_big_bang said:

I am not surprised they are stunning images.  

I have started keeping some images that I consider a standard to aim for and if you have no objections Adam I would like to take a screen shot of one of these and maybe one day I will get a an image half as good as these.

Well done they are great images (all of them) 🙂 

Steve

Thanks Steve,  yeah no objections, I'm sure you can do even better 😀

[Rustang]

2 minutes ago, Adam1234 said:

Thanks mate! Much appreciated!

👍 Ive got the same scope, SW 80 ED, different camera though, how cropped in are these!?

Edited September 26, 2020 by Rustang

[symmetal]

25 minutes ago, Adam1234 said:

Thanks Alan. Both Oiii and Sii were very faint, but it was there, and I had to gently coax it out by stretching before combining as the Ha was too overpowering. 

I think the Sii was slightly stronger than the Oiii but I'll have to check when I'm on my laptop and let you know. I think the Sii was responsible for the more reddish colours around the base of the trunk

I'm wondering if I may have the S2 and Hb swapped over in the filter wheel as I got quite a bit on Hb position but nothing discernable on S2. 🤔

Hb doesn't seem to feature in many images I've seen so assume on many targets it gives nothing.

Alan 

[Adam1234]

1 hour ago, Rustang said:

👍 Ive got the same scope, SW 80 ED, different camera though, how cropped in are these!?

Hi, the first image is pretty much the the full frame, only a small margin from stacking artefacts due to dithering cropped out. 

[Rustang]

8 minutes ago, Adam1234 said:

Hi, the first image is pretty much the the full frame, only a small margin from stacking artefacts due to dithering cropped out. 

Oh ok, didn't realise 600mm would get you right in that close, to be fair I've not really reaserch this target. I'm guessing there wouldnt be to much difference in the focal length/field of view between your dedicated camera and my cropped sensor DSLR!? 

[Adam1234]

I'm using a 0.85 focal reducer field flattener, so I'm at 510mm.

To see what your field of view is with your setup, use the ocular section in Stelarium, fill out the details like telescope focal length,  camera pixel size, angle of the camera. Very helpful, shows you how your framing will look

[Rustang]

18 minutes ago, Adam1234 said:

I'm using a 0.85 focal reducer field flattener, so I'm at 510mm.

To see what your field of view is with your setup, use the ocular section in Stelarium, fill out the details like telescope focal length,  camera pixel size, angle of the camera. Very helpful, shows you how your framing will look

Cheers, I normally use the astronomy tools website, Im just being lazy! 😊 Plus it helps seeing and understanding real life results 👍

[Adam1234]

I use that sometimes too if I'm on my phone, its very helpful