Elephant's Trunk nebula

About 0.75 kpc ( about 2.4 KLJ )

IC 1396, Milky Way

IC 1396A, LBN 452

The Elephant's Trunk Nebula, also known under the catalog designation IC 1396A, is a light edged globule, ie a collection of interstellar gas and dust in the constellation Cepheus. The Globule belongs to IC 1396, an H II region with an embedded star clusters, and is about 2,400 light-years away from Earth.

The fog is an active star-forming region and contains a number of young stars and protostars, which are only between 100,000 and one million years old.

Before the globule, the reflection nebula van den Bergh is 142 ( vdB 142), which is very likely in physical terms. This reflection nebula is from the B3 star HD 239710 (BD 56 ° 2604 ) illuminated. The term vdB 142 is often given for the Elephant Trunk Nebula, but this is wrong.

• TYC 3975-41-1
• SAO 33573