HIP 106890 — Elephant’s Trunk Nebula (IC 1396A)
A dark globule shaped like a trunk, carved by radiation from nearby massive stars within the vast IC 1396 nebular complex in Cepheus.
View photos ↓- Object type
- Emission nebula (dark globule)
- Constellation
- Cepheus
- Designation
- IC 1396A "Elephant's Trunk" (field centered on star HIP 106890)
- Distance
- ≈ 2,400 light-years
- Apparent magnitude
- ≈ 5.6 (IC 1396A) / 3.5 (whole IC 1396)
- Apparent size
- ≈ 5 arcmin for the trunk, several degrees for the full IC 1396 complex
- Best season
- Summer / Autumn (best visibility Aug-Oct)
The Elephant’s Trunk Nebula (IC 1396A) is a dense, dark globule embedded in IC 1396, a large region of ionized gas in the constellation Cepheus. Its bright, sinuous rim is carved and eroded by intense radiation from the massive multiple star HD 206267, while the denser interior stays opaque enough to hide ongoing star formation.
This image is framed on the star HIP 106890, used as a pointing reference to center the trunk, amid a particularly dense star field.
Session shot on the night of August 7-8, 2026 with the Seestar S30 Pro mounted in equatorial mode on the EQ3, fitted with its light pollution filter: 280 sub-exposures of 30 seconds each, for about 2h20 of total integration, stacked and processed in Siril.
