IC1396 is a fabulous and well known nebula complex in the Far Northern constellation of Cepheus and is about 2400 light years distant. It is comprised of a huge cloud of excited hydrogen gas known as a HII region (pronounced “H-two”). Some nice features include the Elephant’s Trunk nebula embedded in it.
Full resolution (8Meg) image here (opens in a new tab): I do not use bit.ly and would rather my visitors know where they will connect 😉
https://skastro.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/IC_1396_WF.jpg
Technical Details
Imaged from my back yard in Nottingham, UK on the nights of 15th and 16th October 2023 when almost directly overhead. It consist of 54 x 240s exposures with a QHYCCD One Shot Colour (OSC) camera with a gain of 30 and offset of 0 through a Takahashi FSQ85 telescope with the 0.67 focal reducer/flattener.
Sky conditions and transparency were both poor, as usual for the UK in all but the rarest nights of seeing.
I hope you like it 🙂
