The Elephant Trunk Nebula

The Elephant Trunk Nebula located in the Constellation Cepheus is about 2,400 light years from earth. This region is a massive concentration of interstellar gas ionized by the young stars. The common name comes from the elephant trunk looking structure of dense gas.

Elephant Trunk Nebula

Contains: B161, IC 1396, IC1396, Sh2-131, VdB142

Optimized for: Red = Ha, Blue = OIII

Here is another process of the image that we like – popped out the red a bit more. Curious which one you prefer – the OII is lost on this one, however the hydrogen gas is more pervasive and brighter!

Optimized for: H-Alpha

This photo was taken in Austin TX on the night of the 4th of July. Didn’t have too many subs to drop out due to fireworks.

Leave a comment below to let us know which one you prefer!

Acquisition Software

These photos were taken with the Open Source software NINA – Nighttime Imaging ‘N Astronomy.

Sequence:

• Flats generated using Nina Flat Wizard.
• Target acquired from Stellarium Planetarium and imported into Nina Framing Wizard.
• Target set as Sequence in NINA.
• Sequence was configured for centering, plate solving and tracking.
• 100 exposures of 180 seconds a piece with dithering between every sub.

Acquisition Gear

• Orion ED80 Telescope
• ASI533 Camera cooled to -5c
• EQ6R Mount
• Optolong L-Enhance Filter

Orion 9895 ED80 80mm f/7.5 Apochromatic Refractor Telescope

Optolong 1.25″ L-Enhance Dual Narrowband Light Pollution Filter (H-Alpha and H-Beta/O-III)

Sky Watcher EQ6-R – Fully Computerized GoTo German Equatorial Telescope Mount – Belt-driven, Motorized, Computerized Hand Controller with 42,900+ Celestial Object Database

Price not available

$164.80

$1,699.00

–

–

Buy on Amazon

Buy on Amazon

Buy on Amazon

Orion 9895 ED80 80mm f/7.5 Apochromatic Refractor Telescope

Price not available

–

Buy on Amazon

Optolong 1.25″ L-Enhance Dual Narrowband Light Pollution Filter (H-Alpha and H-Beta/O-III)

$164.80

Buy on Amazon

Sky Watcher EQ6-R – Fully Computerized GoTo German Equatorial Telescope Mount – Belt-driven, Motorized, Computerized Hand Controller with 42,900+ Celestial Object Database

$1,699.00

–

Buy on Amazon

Affiliate links & Product Images are from Amazon Product Advertising API.

PixInsight Processing

This image was processed using PixInsight with the following workflow

1. WeghtedBatchProcessing – WBPP – Calibrated with Flats, Flat-Darks and Lights
2. Split off Luminance Channel
3. Split RGB Channels
4. Apply Stretch – look for features in channel.
5. Use starnet++ to generate star Mask from Luminance
6. Mask Stars on Luminance
7. Deconvolution on Luminance
8. Denoise on each L RGB
9. Combine RGB Channels
10. Photo Color Calibration – Selecting NB target and allow Background Neutralization
11. Clone
12. Stretch Clone
13. Run Starnet to remove stars
14. ACDNR to denoise
15. Use Pixelmath to re-add stars
16. Stretch
17. PixelMath apply Lum Channel
18. Curves adjustment
19. Save your work

I’ll re-process this image with screenshots taken. I’m happy to share the steps, tools, and tricks in the hopes it helps others!

Thank you and as always, we love your feedback! Let us know what you think!