Elephant Trunk Nebula SHO

 As an amateur astronomer, the scale and beauty of IC 1396 are truly awe-inspiring. This vast emission nebula, located in the constellation Cepheus, it spans hundreds of light-years, making it a colossal feature in the night sky. Its intricate structures and rich star-forming regions, like the famous Elephant's Trunk Nebula pictured below, has captivated observers and photographers like myself with it's detail and complexity. Through a telescope, IC 1396 reveals swirling clouds of gas and dust illuminated by young, hot stars. The contrast between dark nebulae and glowing hydrogen regions creates a stunning visual tapestry, offering a glimpse into the dynamic processes shaping our galaxy. 15 hours of data was captured over several weeks finally allowing me to finish this image.

Melotte 15

The full moon interferes with imaging the very faint objects so I have been reprocessing some data captured from early last year. These two images lie within the centre of the Heart Nebula. The first is Melotte-15 is the star cluster at the heart of the Heart Nebula. It is an association of very young hot blue supergiant stars that are only 1.5 million years old. Fierce stellar winds from this cluster have blown the enormous bubble within the parent nebula that is the heart nebula. Image 2. The winds have sculpted the dust clouds within which other stars are forming into interesting columns and shapes.

The Tadpoles SHO processed

About 9 hours of data used to create the HSO version of the IC 410 nebula.

This was a project started lst year with just some Ha data.

48 x 5Min subs Ha

30 x 5Min subs for Oiii & Sii

Plan mode on the AIR incorporating the EAF during acquisition has produced an incredible set of sub frames. Processed in Pixinsight.

Full calibration using WBPP script. DBE, and Linear fit to the Oiii channel, Channel Combination, Generalised Hyperbolic stretch, Correct Magenta Stars, Starnett++Generalised Hyperbolic stretch, Curves, Blur Exterminator, Noise Exterminator, Colour Mask, Convolution, LRGB Combination to add Luminance, Curves, Colour Masks,

I would love to do a video on the processing, but just not that confident in front of the camera.

Anyway the final results are as follows.

A crop of the Tadpoles.

Go on the a little more cropping.