Background

IC 1396 is a very photogenic region of the sky. It’s a large object, so well-suited to wide-field telescopes. In fact, I captured it a few years back using my Askar FRA400 telescope. If you have a longer focal length to play with, like my Askar 130PHQ‘s 1000mm, then you can really zoom in to see get those details. Most people are drawn to the the Elephant’s Trunk Nebula, and I photographed that back in October 2022. There’s a lot more to see in this region of space though, and I decided to return to it in order to snap the lesser-known region next to the Elephant’s Trunk, known as B161 and LDN 1121. Here’s my wide-field view of IC 1396, and the box shows the area covered by my latest image:

Specifically, B161 and LDN 1121 are these areas:

Just out of curiosity, I cropped the old Askar FRA400 view to match my latest attempt with the Askar 130PHQ. Of course it’s not a fair comparison as the two were processed differently, and have different integration times, but use the slider view below and you’ll get an idea of the benefits that a bigger telescope can give. The 130PHQ view is certainly sharper and has more detail, but I’m impressed with how well the FRA400 holds up even when cropped in so much. The differences are definitely more apparent when viewed on a big screen!