The Elephant's Trunk Nebula: IC 1396A | Mayall Telescope

The Elephant's Trunk Nebula: IC 1396A | Mayall Telescope

This image was obtained with the wide-field view of the Mosaic camera on the 4-meter Mayall Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory. IC 1396 is a giant emission nebula that is over 3 degrees in diameter. It is illuminated by a hot, massive O-type star (HD 206267) near its center. The star is not visible in this image—it is off of the top edge. This image is of IC 1396A, a dark, dense cloud of gas embedded in the nebula. It is informally known as the “Elephant's Trunk Nebula” because of its distinctive shape. The Elephant's Trunk Nebula is a concentration of interstellar gas and dust within the much larger ionized gas region of IC 1396. It is located in the constellation Cepheus about 2,400 light years away from Earth.

The Nicholas U. Mayall Telescope is a four-meter (158 inches) reflector telescope in Arizona named after the American observational astronomer of the same name. The telescope saw first light on February 27, 1973, and was the second-largest in the world at that time.

Image Credit: T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage) and H. Schweiker (WIYN and NOIRLab/NSF/AURA)

Release Date: Nov. 11, 2015

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