Elephant Trunk Nebula, IC 1396

The Elephant Trunk Nebula, IC 1396  The Elephant’s Trunk Nebula winds through the emission nebula and young star cluster complex IC 1396, in the high and far off constellation of Cepheus. Of course, the cosmic elephant trunk is over 20 light-years long This image was recorded through narrowband filters that transmit the light from ionized hydrogen, sulfur, and oxygen atoms in the region. The resulting image highlights the bright swept back ridges that outline pockets of cool interstellar dust and gas. Such embedded, dark tendril shaped clouds contain the raw material for star formation and hide protostars the obscuring cosmic dust. Nearly 3,000 light years distant, the relatively faint IC 1396 complex covers a large region on the sky, spanning over 5 degrees (10 moon diameters). The image was taken with a Takahashi 6″ FS152 telescope and involved 168 images taken over 44 hours.