This one is another holiday wide field capture. IC1396 Elephant Trunk nebula was the same kind of problem for me as California nebula – it never fit into field of view of my permanent imaging setups. But for 135mm telephoto lens it fit into frame with ease. The captured area is rich in dark clouds and hydrogen clouds. There is also whole lot of stars here, but no prominent open clusters has been catalogued in this region.
At the northern edge of IC1396 Elephant Trunk nebula there is bright Garnet Star (μ Cephei) – one of the brightest known stars in our Galaxy. It is 350,000 times more luminous than Sun, and when placed in the centre of Solar system it would extend over the Saturn orbit. Garnet Star is red supergiant, that is also semiregular variable star. Its apparent brightness changes in the range 3.45 to 5.1 mag. Garnet Star may explode as supernova in any moment (so like tomorrow or in one million years – remember it is a cosmic scale 🙂 )
I collected subframes to this image in fairly good conditions during holidays in 2018. There were some nearby small cities, but transparency was very good due to constant breeze.
Large version https://astrojolo.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/2018-08-19-I1396-3.jpg
Large version https://astrojolo.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/I1396_fin_Annotated.jpg
Clear skies!
Image technical data: Date: August, 19-21 2018 Location: Odargowo, Poland Telescope: Samyang 135/2 @ f/2.8 Corrector: none Camera: QHY163M, gain 100 Mount: iOptron SmartEQ Pro Guiding: 50mm guidescope + ASI290MM Exposure: LRGBHO 80:60:40:50 x 30 seconds, 15:15 x 120 seconds Conditions: transparency good
