Elephant Trunk Nebula

Target details

The Elephant's Trunk is a dense column of gas and dust inside the much larger glowing region IC 1396, in Cepheus, about 2,400 light-years away. It's a place where stars are being born: infrared images in 2003 revealed several very young stars inside it, less than 100,000 years old. In the head of the trunk, two slightly older stars – a couple of million years old, still infants by stellar standards – sit in a small round cavity that their winds may have cleared.

Capture details

Data captured over 7 nights between 2nd October & 22nd November, 2020.
80x 10 minute exposures with Hydrogen-Alpha filter.
34x 2 minute exposures with Blue filter (Binned 2x2).
42x 2 minute exposures with Green filter (Binned 2x2).
45x 2 minute exposures with Red filter (Binned 2x2).

Total Exposure = 17.4 hours.

Equipment details

Skywatcher Quattro 200 CF
NEQ6 Pro
Atik 460EX Mono
Skywatcher ST-80
QHY5L-II

Processing details

This image was processed in Pixinsight & Lightroom.
Calibration and Stacking in Pixinsight using Batch PreProcessing.
Dynamic Crop - To remove black edges & integration artifacts. (Each Channel)
Dynamic Background Extraction - To remove gradients. (Each Channel)
Linear Fit - To equalise each of the RGB channels.
Channel Combination - To combine RGB channels.
Photometric Colour Calibration - To calibrate colours. (RGB Image)
SCNR - To remove green cast. (RGB Image)
Deconvolution - To bring out some fine detail & tighten stars, 50-100 iterations. (Ha only)
Multiscale Linear Transform - Noise reduction. (Ha only)
Histogram Transformation - To stretch the Ha & RGB. (Using statistics process to keep background levels even)
LRGB Combination - To blend Ha & RGB, creating the HaRGB image.
TVGDenoise - To reduce noise, with Rangemask to protect nebula.
Curves Transformation - To boost contrast slightly.
UnsharpMask - To sharpen nebula detail, with inverted nebula mask in place.
Local Histogram Equalisation - To sharpen nebula detail, with inverted nebula mask in place.
Curves Transformation - To boost nebula saturation, with inverted nebula mask in place.
Curves Transformation - To boost contrast, with inverted nebula mask in place.
TVGDenoise - To reduce noise around edge of nebula, with inverted nebula mask in place.
Dark Structure Enhance - To boost contrast.

Export as JPEG and import into Lightroom.

Increase Contrast (+15)
Reduce Blacks (-15)
Boost Vibrance (+50)
Boost Red Saturation (+50)

Export final JPEG for upload.