The Elephant's Trunk Nebula is part of IC1396, which is a huge emission nebula in Cepheus. It is a cometary globule, which consists of gas and dust, compressed by the strong radiation of a nearby star. New stars are probably born within.
This version of the nebula has been created from images taken through three different narrowband filters, which have been assigned to the three colors magenta, yellow and cyan.
Cyan= ionized sulfur emission lines ( 671.9nm and 673.0nm)
Magenta= hydrogen alpha emission line ( 656.3nm)
Yellow = double ionized oxygen emission lines ( 495.9nm and 500.7nm)