SH2-131
(
IC 1396
)
This object, also known as IC 1396, which really is the open cluster inside of it, also has quite a few Barnard dark nebulae that pick up. The largest on the bottom left is known as B365 and B160. This large and commonly imaged object is a great nebula for all the filters that imagers use. There is a great deal of structure that picks up, especially with longer exposure. A larger telescope can pick up the very fine detail around the dark regions found in the nebula, which is know as The Elephant Nebula. This area can be seen on the bottom part of the image. The nebula picks up very well in the hydrogen-alpha filter as well as the other narrowband filters Sulfur II and Oxygen III. The H-Alpha filter helps with a color image HA-RGB image, but plan on a lot of RGB detail to get a good color image.
For a complete list of the Sharpless Catalog visit my main site at
http://www.sharplesscatalog.com
Images below were taken with my 8 inch F/4
Images by Dean Salman