The Elephant Trunk Nerbula is part of a large cloud of faint nebulosity associated with the young star cluster Trumpler 37. In fact, Trumpler 37 is one of the youngest known star clusters in the Milky Way Galaxy. This star cluster includes 480 stars scattered across 46 light-years of space. The red glow of the Elephant Trunk Nerbula is largely the result of the prodigious radiation from an O-type triple star system, cataloged as Struve 2816, which ionizes the hydrogen gas in the nebula. The Elephant Trunk Nebula, cataloged as IC 1396, is part of an extended H-II region that is rich in globules distributed over an large area of the sky in Cepheus. A number of dark nebulae can be seen in this image, including Barnard 142, Bernard 160, Bernard 162, Bernard 365, Bernard 366, and Bernard 367. Although IC 1396 is commonly known as the Elephant Trunk Nebula, I personally think that NGC 896 and IC 1805 look more like an elephant's trunk that this nebula does.
Click on the above image (or click here) to see a larger version of the image. (Note: This is a large file: 2.5MB).
This is an RGB color composite CCD image taken with an SBIG STL-11000M CCD and a Takahashi Epsilon 180ED telescope at f2.8. The image was taken from my backyard in Scottsdale, Arizona.
IC 1396
Constellation: Cepheus
RA: 21h 39m 06s Dec: +57d 30' 00" (J2000)
June 9 & 10 and July 10, 2011
Image by Sid Leach
Scottsdale, Arizona
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