A Bigger Elephant
This is my second attempt at the Elephant’s Trunk Nebula, IC 1396, with the Dwarf 3. I’m going to revisit several objects over the next few months, applying new image processing tools and skills, to try to improve on my previous images.
IC 1396 lies about 2,400 light years away, and is about 100 light years across. It is located in the northern constellation Cepheus, which depicts the King of Aethiopia (Joppa, in ancient Phoenicia) from Greek Mythology. If you’ve ever seen Clash of the Titans, Cepheus was the husband of Cassiopeia and father of Andromeda, whom Perseus rescued from the Kraken (Cetus in the original myth).
The image above is a mosaic of three separate panels. Each panel is the result of about three hours of integration time of individual 120-second exposures at 60 gain on the Dwarf 3 using the Dual Band filter. The final images were combined and processed using Siril.
Technically, the actual “elephant’s trunk” is a dark nebula within the larger IC 1396. It is cataloged as IC 1396A. Below is a close-up of the trunk, which looks nothing like an elephant’s trunk to me. I think it looks more like a hand throwing a large eye bolt. But, I suppose “Hand Throwing an Eyebolt Nebula” doesn’t have the same ring to it.
IC 1396 is illuminated by the bright star HD 206267, located near the left edge of the image above. Appearing as a single star to the naked eye, HD 206267 is actually three stars, two of which have been confirmed to orbit each other. The presence of multiple stars was discovered through spectroscopic analysis.
But probably the most important star within the field of view of IC 1396 is the reddish one in the upper-right of the first image. This is Mu Cephei, commonly known as the Garnet Star. The famous astronomer William Herschel described it as having a “very fine deep garnet colour.” It was used as a reference star in the classification of the spectra of other stars. The Garnet Star is a beautiful target for visual observation, especially in small telescopes.
Click on the link below to view the full-size version of this image:
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