Cepheus is a constellation in the northern sky, named after a mythical king of Ethiopia. It contains several notable deep-sky objects, including the emission nebula IC 1396 and the Elephant's Trunk Nebula, and is home to the red supergiant star Mu Cephei.
Source: science.nasa.gov
19/08/2009

Sprawling across hundreds of light-years, emission nebula IC 1396, visible on the upper right, mixes glowing cosmic gas and dark dust clouds. Stars are forming in this area, only about 3,000 light-years from Earth. This wide angle view also captures surrounding emission and absorption nebula. The red glow in IC 1396 and across the image is created by cosmic hydrogen gas recapturing electrons knocked away by energetic starlight. The dark dust clouds are dense groups of smoke-like particles common in the disks of spiral galaxies. Among the intriguing dark shapes within IC 1396, the winding Elephant's Trunk nebula lies just right of the nebula's center. IC 1396 lies in the high and far off constellation of Cepheus.