APOD: An Elephant's Trunk in Cepheus (2018 Jan 16)

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APOD Robot
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APOD: An Elephant's Trunk in Cepheus (2018 Jan 16)

Post by APOD Robot » Tue Jan 16, 2018 5:07 am

Image An Elephant's Trunk in Cepheus

Explanation: With image data from telescopes large and small, this close-up features the dusty Elephant's Trunk Nebula. It winds through the emission nebula and young star cluster complex IC 1396, in the high and far off constellation of Cepheus. Also known as vdB 142, the cosmic elephant's trunk is over 20 light-years long. The colorful view highlights bright, swept-back ridges that outline the region's pockets of cool interstellar dust and gas. Such embedded, 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 covers a large region on the sky, spanning over 5 degrees. This dramatic scene spans a 1 degree wide field, about the size of 2 Full Moons.

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Boomer12k
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Re: APOD: An Elephant's Trunk in Cepheus (2018 Jan 16)

Post by Boomer12k » Tue Jan 16, 2018 7:06 am

Good close up...

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heehaw

Re: APOD: An Elephant's Trunk in Cepheus (2018 Jan 16)

Post by heehaw » Tue Jan 16, 2018 10:35 am

Lovely!

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Cousin Ricky
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Re: APOD: An Elephant's Trunk in Cepheus (2018 Jan 16)

Post by Cousin Ricky » Tue Jan 16, 2018 7:48 pm

By my math, a 1° field of view at 3000 ly is 52 ly, considerably longer than the 20 ly in the description.