IC 1396, best known as the Elephant’s Trunk nebula is a very bright concentration of gas and dust within the region of Cepheus. This was my first capture of 2021 with the new ASI2600MM camera. I was impressed with the capabilities of the IMX571 mono sensor.
I choose a different framing for the Elephant’s trunk, in the classic SHO palette. The image is composed of 4.5hrs integration of Ha, Oiii and Sii each.
High resolution image here
Processing details
Pixinsight
- Calibration, weighting, alignment, integration (drizzle integration vark 1.5), crop, Integer downsample 2x
- Crop
- LinearFit Ha and Sii maters to Oiii
SLUM
- EzDecon
- Integer downsample x2
- EzDenoise
- HT stretch
- Enhance nebulosity
- LHE with background mask
- EzStarReduction
SHO
- ChannelCombination
- Integer downsample x2
- HT stretch
- EzStarReduction
- LRGB combination with SLUM
- Curves and masks for color adjustments
- EnhanceDarkStructures script
Photoshop
- Enhanced saturation and contrast
- Non linear noise reduction protecting stars
- various curves, contrast and color adjustments with masks
