The Sh2-131 emission nebula in Cepheus with the embedded star cluster IC1396 and home to the famous Elephant’s Trunk Nebula VDB142. It is a large emissions nebula with stunning inlays of dust clouds absorbing most of the lights. The total size of the complex corresponds to about 10 times the full moon.

This is a straight Ha monochrome image constructed from 15 exposures with 600 sec each, a total of 2.5 hours of exposure. Using my wide-field setup with the Asahi/Pentax Takumar 135mm f/2.5 with the ATIK 460EXm. Taken from the balcony of my house in the light-polluted Frankfurt area – Bortle class 7 (red zone). This is the “first-light” for my self-constructed wooden pier, which worked like a charm. Guiding rms-errors of the AZ-EQ6 during the 10 min exposures were on the order of 0.4 arcsec. Make sure to look at this image in full-size view.