Here is IC 410, commonly known as the Tadpoles Nebula. IC410 is a emission nebula and stellar nursery located in the constellation of Auriga, at about 12,000 light years from Earth. This star forming region lies right in the swath of stars of the summer Milky Way. The gas structures in this picture are lit by the radiation from the open star cluster NGC1893 that lies in the center of the nebula. This star cluster is about 4 million years old, but in astronomical terms it is still very young, with hot, massive stars.
At the lower left part of the star cluster two star forming structures are visible. These are composed of dust and gas leftover from the formation of the star cluster and are very likely to give birth to more stars in the future. As can be seen in the inset, these structures point away from the center of the nebula, because the stellar winds and radiation pressure from the stars in NGC 1893. Due to these structures’ shape, the nebula is named the Tadpoles Nebula.
Image Info
- Imaged from the KPO field in Saint Cloud, Florida.
- Camera : ZWO ASI1600MM Pro
- Lens: Canon 100-400 f/5.6L lens, set to 386mm
- Mount: iOptron SmartEQ Pro
- Hydrogen Alpha: 60 subframes of 300s = 300 min integration, assigned to Red
- Oxygen III: 18 subframes of 300s = 90 min integration, assigned to Blue
- Sulphur II: 20 subframes of 300s = 100 min integration, assigned to Green
- Total integration time: 490 min = 8.2 hours.
- Captured via ASIAir Pro automation
- Optical tracking via ASIAir automation, currently using ST4 mount control via the ASI120MM-S guide camera
- Separate channels stacked and HSO integrated in Astro Pixel Processor
- Final processing in Aperture
- Inset closeup image created in PhotoShop