Abstract We present a comprehensive study of the HII region IC 1396 and its star forming activity, in which multi-wavelength data ranging from the optical to the near- and far-infrared were employed. The surface density distribution of all the 2MASS sources with a certain detection toward IC 1396 indicates the existence of a compact cluster spatially consistent with the position of the exciting source of the HII region, HD 206267. The spatial distribution of the sources with excessive infrared emission, selected based on archived 2MASS data, reveals the existence of four sub-clusters in this region. One is associated with the open cluster Trumpler 37. The other three are found to be spatially coincident with the bright rims of the HII region. All the sources with excessive emission in the near infrared are cross-identified with AKARI IRC data. An analysis of the spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of the resultant sample leads to the identification of eight CLASS I, 15 CLASS II and 15 CLASS III sources in IC 1396. Optical identification of the sample sources with R magnitudes brighter than 17 mag corroborates the results from the SED analysis. Based on the spatial distribution of the infrared young stellar objects at different evolutionary stages, the surrounding sub-clusters located in the bright rims are believed to be younger than the central one. This is consistent with a scenario of sequential star formation in this region. Imaging data of a dark patch in IC 1396 by Herschel SPIRE, on the other hand, indicate the presence of two far-infrared cores in LDN 1111, which are likely to be a new generation of protostellar objects in formation. So we infer that the star formation process in this HII region was not continuous but rather episodic.

Keywords techniques: photometric — stars: formation — stars: pre–main sequence — infrared: stars

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