The Tadpole Nebula, IC 410, is a dusty emission nebula approximately 12,000 LY away in Auriga. The glowing cloud complex is over 100 LY across and contains the open cluster, NGC 1893. The cluster, visible in the center of my image, is relatively young at 4-million years and is responsible for dense streamers of material moving away from the central region. Two of these clumps of gas and dust form the "Tadpoles", the gold colored objects just above the central cluster, NGC 1893. Formed by the radiation pressure and stellar wind from the cluster, the Tadpoles are about 10 LY long and are likely forming proto-stars.

Most of you who follow my might be surprised how much I cropped it as I prefer wide field images but sometimes it must be done. I have wanted to capture this for a long time but I had to wait for the right equipment to do it justice - a monochrome camera and narrowband filters. Without the narrowband filters the tadpoles are much harder to bring out. I last published a completed image (NGC 1333) on December 8 so this was not so bad although I first started November 16. Angering the weather gods and a couple of trips plus me having to work in the morning contributed to the long collection time.

When I was imaging, things were good except for the freak wind gust that blew ice and snow into my shed and on my telescope lens. So I finally cleaned my telescope. Also, I was trying to get my new dedicated astronomy computer (Dell Inspiron - I5 processor, 8 GB ram, 256 SSD) to work but had some difficulties. APT worked well including the plate-solving; the problem was the QHY-5L-M autoguider. In particular the new drivers did not work. I may work now but I purchased a new ZWO ASI120 to use as the autoguider. I need some clear weather to test it though.

One more odd thing, after stacking the images in PI, the Ha and OIII were really good but the SII was wonky. I thought it might be the flats so I stacked it in DSS without the flats and it looked good. I did it again in DSS with the flats and again it was fine so I am at a loss on this one. The images are posted on my website below:

http://astroquest1.blogspot.com/2019/12/ic-410-tadpole-nebula.html

Youtube Video:

https://youtu.be/xiGG_oBWCWY