The Elephant's Trunk nebula is a region of ionized gasses located in the constellation Cepheus at a distance of 2,400 light-years from Earth. Shown here is the "tip" of a large structure that resembles an elephant's trunk. Of interest in this area is the population of very young newborn stars, whose intense stellar winds are excavating the interior of the nebula. Dark wisps of dust hide the coccoon of forming stars, called "globules", which will be blown away when the star ignites. This is a Hubble Palette (HST) version of the Elephant Trunk Nebula with SII filter assigned to Red, H-Alpha filter assigned to Green and OIII filter assigned to the blue channel. Total Exposure 10.5 hours Clear Skies Terry Down Under Observatory on Facebook Down Under Observatory YouTube Date of Shoot September 3rd, 6th, 7th and 9th 2012 H-Alpha 3nm 7 x 30 min OIII 8.5 nm 7 x 30 min SII 8 nm 7 x 30 min Camera: QHY9M monochrome CCD, cooled to -30C www.astrofactors.com StarlightXpress Color Filter Wheel Scope: Thomas M. Back TMB 92SS F5.5 APO Refractor www.astronomics.com Astro Tech AT2FF Field Flattener For guiding: StarlightXpress Lodestar autoguider, StarlightXpress Ultra Slim Off Axis guider Paramount GT-1100S German Equatorial Mount (with MKS 4000) Image Aquisition Maxim DL Stacking and Calibrating: CCDStack Registration of images in Registar Post Processing Photoshop CS5 DownUnderObservatory on facebook