Other Names: Elephant Trunk
Optics: Borg Astrograph 101ED at f/4.1
Mount: Atlas EQG using The Sky6 and EQMOD
Camera: Canon EOS 50D [ UV/IR filter modification by Hap Griffin ]
Filters: IDAS Light Pollution Suppression (LPS) Filter
Exposure: 265 Mins [53 x 300s at ISO 800]
Accessories: Auto guided with Borg 45ED and Orion Starshoot Auto guider using PHD
Location: Calgary, AB
Date: November 2nd, 2010
Notes: Processing: Image acquisition with Maxim DSLR. Image calibration, align, and combine in Maxim DSLR. Levels, curves, Noise Ninja, StarSpikes Pro, crop and resize in Photoshop.
Calibrated w/10 Darks, 40 Bias, 40 Flats using light box Ambient temperature was +4.1C

The Elephant's Trunk nebula is a concentration of interstellar gas and dust in the star cluster IC 1396 and ionized gas region located in the constellation Cepheus about 2,400 light years away from Earth[1]. The piece of the nebula shown here is the dark, dense globule IC 1396A; it is commonly called the Elephant Trunk nebula because of its appearance at visible wavelengths, where it is a dark patch with a bright, sinuous rim. The bright rim is the surface of the dense cloud that is being illuminated and ionized by a very bright, massive star that is just to the west of IC 1396A.
The Elephant Trunk nebula is now thought to be site of star formation, containing several very young (less than 100,000 yr) stars that were discovered in infrared images in 2003. Two older (but still young, a couple of million years, by the standards of stars, which live billions of years) stars are present in a small, circular cavity in the head of the globule. Winds from these young stars may have emptied the cavity.
The combined action of the light from the massive star ionizing and compressing the rim of the cloud, and the wind from the young stars shifting gas from the center outward lead to very high compression in the Elephant Trunk nebula. This pressure has triggered the current generation of protostars