The Squid and The Elephant's Trunk
The Squid and The Elephant's Trunk
The Elephant's Trunk Nebula is a concentration of interstellar gas and dust within the much larger ionized gas region IC 1396 located in the constellation Cepheus about 2,400 light years away from Earth.
The Giant Squid Nebula, Ou4 and the Flying Bat Nebula, Sh2-129 (left of the mosaic)
Seemingly completely surrounded by the reddish hydrogen emission region SH2-129, the true distance and nature of the Squid Nebula has been difficult to determine. A recent investigation suggests Ou4 is actually located within SH2-129 which is around 2,300 light-years away from the solar system. If this is the case then Ou4 would represent a spectacular outflow driven by HR8119, a triple system of hot, massive stars seen near the centre of the nebula. If so, the truly giant Squid Nebula would physically be nearly 50 light-years across.
False colour image made using narrowband band data, however the stars are coloured with true colour (calibrated) broadband data.
Total Integration: ~54 hrs
The Giant Squid Nebula, Ou4 and the Flying Bat Nebula, Sh2-129 (left of the mosaic)
Seemingly completely surrounded by the reddish hydrogen emission region SH2-129, the true distance and nature of the Squid Nebula has been difficult to determine. A recent investigation suggests Ou4 is actually located within SH2-129 which is around 2,300 light-years away from the solar system. If this is the case then Ou4 would represent a spectacular outflow driven by HR8119, a triple system of hot, massive stars seen near the centre of the nebula. If so, the truly giant Squid Nebula would physically be nearly 50 light-years across.
False colour image made using narrowband band data, however the stars are coloured with true colour (calibrated) broadband data.
Total Integration: ~54 hrs
SPECIFICATIONS
Telescope
Takahashi FSQ-106ED Spa-1 and 3
Camera
FLI PL16803
Location
IC Astronomy Observatory, Oria, Spain
Date of observation
May 2021 - November 2022
Filters
Astrodon SHORGB
Processing
PixInsight, APP, RC Astro Tools, Photoshop
Credits
Data: TelescopeLive Processing: Jonathan Lodge
Comments
This is great, well done!
Thank you very much Jarmo!
This is an incredible image! Did you use an observation bundle for this or did you do an advanced request? I'd love to be able to download the data if it's available in a bundle. Truly stunning image with great composition.
Thank you very much David, it's all observation bundles which means that the overlap isn’t great and it constrained the crop. I had to use some offset frames that were in there and there are two triangles top and bottom centre which are narrow band stars because the broadband data wasn't there. I think when Jarmo did his mosaic of this he did an advanced request to get the data in the middle to allow a wider crop.