Yet another take of 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 bicolor Ha-OIII image constructed from 60 exposures with 120 sec each, a total of 4 hours of exposure. Using my wide-field rig with the Samyang 135mm f/2 (at f/2.8) with the QHY 163m. A monochrome version with the Ha data is shown below. Compare to last year’s version.