Astrophotography and Nature

DESCRIPTION

The Elephant's Trunk nebula is a concentration of interstellar gas and dust in the star cluster IC 1396 and ionized gas region located in the constellation Cepheus about 2,400 light years away from Earth[1]. The piece of the nebula shown here is the dark, dense globule IC 1396A; it is commonly called the Elephant Trunk nebula because of its appearance at visible wavelengths, where it is a dark patch with a bright, sinuous rim. The bright rim is the surface of the dense cloud that is being illuminated and ionized by a very bright, massive star that is just to the west of IC 1396A. (In the Figure above, the massive star is just to the left of the edge of the image.) The entire IC 1396 region is ionized by the massive star, except for dense globules that can protect themselves from the star's harsh ultraviolet rays.

Wikipedia informations

ACQUISITION

Date & Location

17, 27, 28 Juillet 2009 – Lozère, France

Telescope/Optics

Takahashi FSQ 106ED

Mount

Takahashi EM200

Camera CCD

SBIG STL 4020M

Focuser

Robofocus/FocuxMax

Filters

Ha/SII/OIII Astrodon filters

Guidage

Off-axis MMOAG (Astrodon) STL remote guider TC-237H

IMAGING PROCESS

Exposures

Ha(41*5min) SII(36*5min) OIII(37*5min)

Total : 9h30

Out temperature : 11°C

In CCD temperature : -25°

Softwares for acquisition

Robofocus, Focusmax, CCDsoft V5, TheShy6 Pro, CCDAP 4, CCDInspector

Softwares for digital image processing

Calibration, Registration, Color stack with CCDstack 1.0 (CCDIS plug-in)

Full processing with PIXINSIGHT Core version 1.5