I already pictured Elephant Trunk nebula (IC1396) several times, but it was always “narrow” field images. And I always had kind of trouble how to pack some dark nebulosity around into the frame. This time I solved that problem using 135mm telephoto lens 🙂 At late night in Zatom astroparty I pointed my setup to Cepheus constellation and gathered 90 minutes of exposures. I used Samyang 135mm lens stopped a little to f/2.8 and QHY163C color camera. The sky fragment I pictured was a little bit low above the horizon, because Cepheus is more like autumn constellation in northern hemisphere, that’s why only 90 minutes were collected before the dawn. Anyway it was first real light of QHY163C camera and I am pretty happy with the outcome. Here are the processed image and second one with annotations:
Large version: https://astrojolo.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/2017-04-01-Cepheus3.jpg
Large version: https://astrojolo.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/2017_04_01_Cepheus_Annotated.jpg
Clear skies!
