“They see me as the trunk of some cosmic beast, carved by unseen winds. But they don’t know the power of those winds, the slow sculpting of stardust over eons.”
IC1396 – Elephant Trunk Nebulae – SHO (Hubble Palette)
Description
This is my first Hubble palette (SHO) image of the Elephant’s Trunk Nebula (dark dense globule that looks a little little like an elephant head at the bottom of this image). It is a concentration of interstellar gas and dust within the much larger ionized gas region IC 1396 located in the constellation Cepheus about 2,400 light years away from Earth.
Research and Observations
The nebula is large and relatively faint, stretching over 100 light years. The trunk of the nebula stretches for over 20 light years and is designated IC 1396A. The globule is a condensation of dense gas that is barely surviving the strong ionizing radiation from a nearby massive star. The globule is being compressed by the surrounding ionized gas. The bright rim is the surface of the dense cloud that is being illuminated and ionized by a very bright, massive star HD 206267 that is just to the east of IC 1396A (center of the image)
Acquisition Details
This image was captured over the course of one night:
Aug 7th 2024
– GREEN: 10 X 10 min. exposures via Hydrogen Alpha filter
– BLUE: 10 X 10 min. exposure via Oxygen III filter
– RED: 10 X 10 min. exposures via Sulfur II filter
Total Integration Time: 5 hours
Acquisition Start Time: 21h45
Acquisition Stop Time: 03h45
Image Information
| Object(s) Catalog No: | IC1396 |
| Object Type | Cluster associated with Nebulosity |
| Constellation | Cepheus |
| Size | 12′ x 4′ |
| Magnitude | 3.5 |
| Distance | 1665.8 LY |
| Field of View | 2.06° x 1.55° |
Conditions
| Date | August 7th, 2024 |
| Astronomical Dusk: | 22h13 EDST |
| Moon Age | 0.2 |
| Moon Phase | 3.3 days old |
| Temperature | 17.68º |
| Transparency | Below Average |
| Seeing | Average |
| Wind | 3.7 km/h |
| Dew Point | 12.8º |
| Sky ADU | not measured |
| Sky Flux (e/min) | not calculated |
Equipment
Software
| Mount | Retrofitted CGEM (OnStep) |
| Imaging Scope | Orion ED80T CF |
| Guiding Scope | APM 60mm Image Master |
| Imaging Camera | SBIG ST-8300M |
| Guiding Camera | QHYCCD: QHY5L-II-M |
| Additional Optics | SharpStar Field Flattener – 2.5″ |
| Filters | Ha, OIII, SII |
| Acquisition | NINA |
| Auto-Guiding | PHD2 Guiding |
| Processing | Pixinsight |
| Planetarium | Stellarium |
Subframe Details
| Filters | L | R | G | B | Ha | OII | SII |
| Camera Temperature | -10° C | -10° C | -10° C | ||||
| Binning | 1×1 | 1×1 | 1×1 | ||||
| Number of sub-frames | 10 | 10 | 10 | ||||
| Sub-frames duration (sec) | 600 | 600 | 600 | ||||
| Number of good sub-frames | 10 | 10 | 10 | ||||
| Number of Flats | 21 | 21 | 21 | ||||
| Flats Duration (sec) | 30 | 30 | 30 | ||||
| Number of Darks | 15 | ||||||
| Darks Duration (sec) | 600 | n/a | n/a | ||||
| Number of Bias | 51 | n/a | n/a |
Auto-Focuser Position: 3498
Autoguiding Average : 0.65″ RMS
Acquisition Notes
Meridian Flip did not work. Had to force the flip manually.
- Should calculate filter offsets
- Should run Flats Wizzard to better calculate flats duration
Processing Notes
Straight forwared Hubble SHO palette processing. Used Pixinsight for processing, GraXpert for noise reduction and StarNet to remove the stars while processing.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________