Elephant's Trunk Nebula Start to Finish | PixInsight SHO Processing

Описание: Capture and process the Elephant's Trunk Nebula IC 1396 in the Hubble palette from start to finish – planned in Stellarium, automated with N.I.N.A. astrophotography, and fully processed in a PixInsight SHO workflow.

Over four nights from my automated home observatory in Sweden, I collected 13.5 hours of narrowband data on IC 1396: 53×HA, 57×OIII and 52×SII, each 300 seconds. In this video I’ll show you how I planned the target, set up the sequence in N.I.N.A., and then take you through my complete PixInsight tutorial for creating a Hubble palette image.

You’ll see:

– How I planned IC 1396 in Stellarium
– My N.I.N.A. capture workflow for SHO
– Fun facts and scale of the Elephant’s Trunk Nebula vs our Solar System
– A full PixInsight workflow
– How I combine HA, OIII and SII into an SHO Hubble palette image
– Final image and comparison to my old DSLR

Data for this image was gathered from 4 sessions between 2025-10-17 and 2025-11-17.
Data for this image: 52x300s S-II, 53x300s Ha, 57x300s O-III.
Total number of exposures 162 with a total integration time of 13.5 hours.
Processing: PixInsight with SHO palette with synthetic RGB stars.
Equipment: SkyWatcher EvoStar 80ED Pro (0,85x FR/FF) and Player One Poseidon-M Pro on SkyWatcher HEQ5 Pro with SkyWatcher EvoGuide 50ED and ZWO ASI120MM Mini. Player One SII, Ha, and OIII filters. Location: 63 degrees north with a bortle 4 sky.

Chapters / Timestamps:

00:00:00 Intro – IC 1396 from the home observatory
00:01:42 Planning IC 1396 in Stellarium
00:03:14 N.I.N.A. sequence and capture setup
00:07:06 Elephant’s Trunk Nebula facts and scale
00:08:25 PixInsight master light frames
00:09:27 Linear processing
00:14:03 SHO Hubble palette combination and color tuning
00:17:58 Synthetic RGB stars
00:19:07 Add stars to the SHO image
00:19:52 Comparisons
00:20:56 Showcase and ending

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If you enjoy deep-sky narrowband astrophotography, home observatory automation and detailed PixInsight processing, subscribe for more tutorials and real-world imaging projects from 63° North.

Clear skies! 🌌

My images, information about my gear and contact information can be found here:
https://www.frosth.se

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Frosth Photography Instagram:   / frosthphotography  
Frosth Photography Youtube:    / @frosthastrophotography  
Frosth Photography Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?...