APOD: Elephant's Trunk and Caravan (2023 Jun 08)

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Expand view Topic review: APOD: Elephant's Trunk and Caravan (2023 Jun 08)

Re: APOD: Elephant's Trunk and Caravan (2023 Jun 08)

by VictorBorun » Sat Jun 10, 2023 12:08 pm

To my eye this APOD looks like black dust clouds with hydrogen auras backlighted by a point source, probably the bright star 11 o'clock from the centre of the APOD

Some dusty arms, mostly spread out perpendicular to the illumination from that point source, are so thin that we can see only their hydrogen auras

There seems to be some very foreground dust feathers too; those have no hydrogen auras to them

And the Caravan is another tale. It has a light source of its own, at the feet of the camels

Re: APOD: Elephant's Trunk and Caravan (2023 Jun 08)

by Ann » Fri Jun 09, 2023 5:03 am

orin stepanek wrote: Thu Jun 08, 2023 4:49 pm ic1396ASI294small.jpg
Gotta love the Elephant's trunk!
ssc2003-06b.jpg
This guys kinda cute!

Thanks for posting the closeups of the "guy", Orin. I agree it looks like a guy and not like an elephant's trunk!

I think there is star formation going on in the "head" of the "guy". Stars are peaking out in his "eye".

ic1396ASI294large_1030[1].jpg
Elephant's Trunk and Caravan.
Image Credit & Copyright: Steve Cannistra (StarryWonders)

I should have been more enthusiastic about this picture than I was yesterday, because it is an RGB image, and that's what I want, right? Admittedly, when it comes to pictures of emission nebulas, RGB images tend to make them look unrelentingly red in a way that I sometimes find overwhelming. Yes, but they are red, too, because of the very dominant red light of hydrogen alpha, and images like this APOD is a good reminder of that!

(Yes, yes, Chris, I know you insist that emission nebulas are gray, not red, because they look gray and not red through a telescope. But they would look red and not gray if the human color vision was several magnitudes more sensitive than it is.)


Anyway. The multiple central O-type star, HD 206267, looks nicely blue in the APOD. Also note little flecks of blue on the Elephant Trunk pillar itself, which are little reflection nebulas.

And I have to admit that narrowband imagery brings out more details in pictures of emission nebulas than RGB photography typically does. So here is a narrowband picture of the Elephant Trunk Nebula:


The image doesn't seem to open, but you can see it if you click on the little "no image" icon.

Most of the dust in the Elephant Trunk Nebula is just "flying around", kind of thin and unfocused, as if it was ignoring the power of the central star. Most of the dust structures don't point at the central star and don't have bright rims. But you can find a few bright-rimmed little pillars near the perimeter of the image, which do feel the influence of the hot bright star.


Do take a look at this picture by Steve Cannistra:

IC 1396  Sh2 129 and Ou4 Steve Cannistra.png
The Elephant Trunk Nebula and the Flying Bat Nebula. Credit: Steve Cannistra.

Note all the dark dust all around the Elephant Trunk Nebula, especially above and to the right of it. The Elephant Trunk Nebula has formed in a "river" of gas and dust.

There is far less dust in and near the Flying Bat Nebula. The nebula itself looks much like an empty shell, whereas the Elephant Trunk Nebula looks much more "filled". The multiple O9.5IV central star of the Flying bat Nebula, HD 202214, is cooler than the O6V-type central star of the Elephant Trunk Nebula, but it is surrounded by a highly elongated and mysterious almost pure OIII nebula, Ou4.

And Mu Cephei, if you're wondering, is an unusually deep red supergiant star, also known as the Garnet Star.

Do check out this page, where you can see a whole bunch of Elephant Trunk Nebula pictures!

And do check out this almost 5 MB picture of the Elephant Trunk Nebula. The Elephant Trunk itself looks like a meditating saint with half-closed eyes and wings on his back, basking in the light from - well, from the star HD 206267!

Ann

Re: APOD: Elephant's Trunk and Caravan (2023 Jun 08)

by johnnydeep » Thu Jun 08, 2023 9:19 pm

orin stepanek wrote: Thu Jun 08, 2023 4:49 pm ic1396ASI294small.jpg
Gotta love the Elephant's trunk!
ssc2003-06b.jpg
This guys kinda cute!
"He" looks like a speed skater with a huge head rushing off to the left with his hands behind his back!

Re: APOD: Elephant's Trunk and Caravan (2023 Jun 08)

by orin stepanek » Thu Jun 08, 2023 4:49 pm

ic1396ASI294small.jpg
Gotta love the Elephant's trunk!
ssc2003-06b.jpg
This guys kinda cute!

Re: APOD: Elephant's Trunk and Caravan (2023 Jun 08)

by Rocket Ron » Thu Jun 08, 2023 5:51 am

Colourful photo !

And quite a caravan
https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/silhoue ... 538197.jpg

APOD: Elephant's Trunk and Caravan (2023 Jun 08)

by APOD Robot » Thu Jun 08, 2023 4:05 am

Image Elephant's Trunk and Caravan

Explanation: Like an illustration in a galactic Just So Story, the Elephant's Trunk Nebula winds through the emission region and young star cluster complex IC 1396, in the high and far off constellation of Cepheus. Seen on the left the cosmic elephant's trunk, also known as vdB 142, is over 20 light-years long. This detailed telescopic view features the bright swept-back ridges and pockets of cool interstellar dust and gas that abound in the region. But the dark, tendril-shaped clouds contain the raw material for star formation and hide protostars within. Nearly 3,000 light-years distant, the relatively faint IC 1396 complex</a> covers a large region on the sky, spanning over 5 degrees. This rendition spans a 1 degree wide field of view though, about the angular size of 2 full moons. Of course the dark shapes below and to the right of the outstretched Elephant's Trunk, are known to some as The Caravan.

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