Just 12,000 lightyears from our planet in the constellation of Auriga,  this strong HII emitter is more than a 100 light years in diameter. According to NASA, the two tadpole shaped clouds that give this nebula its name are thought to be sites of star formation.

This has been a journey in processing from beginner to intermediate. Started with Startools in early 2022, and finally switched to Pixinsight in 2023. Startools was great to get started with, and its very intuitive, but the complexity and power of Pixinsight is second to none. Pleased at the detail in the tadpoles, in the final version.  Now able to resolve the two stars in the larger tadpole's head. Original versions processed in Startools from the Sharpcap livestack. Final version restacked and processed entirely in Pixinsight - a huge improvement. Another big jump forward with NBN to enhance OII signal.

And take note, this was imaged with a 14¨ GOTO Dobson with no guiding.

Version B. Starting with the original stack output from Sharpcap,  I reprocessed in Startools using SHO-HST colors followed by star-healing and brightening in superstructure module.  Generated several different color combinations. This is one of my favorites.

Version C. Larger stars from the original image healed, and then processed in Startools color module with consistency settings and high saturation.

Version D. All remaining stars from version B healed. Reprocessed in Startools color module with SHO-HST setting, increased saturation.

Version E.  Went back to the original Startool output and brightened it up in LRC.

Version F:  Thought, I'd give Pixinsight a try: Jan 2023. One year later. Still had original raw and calibration frames, so stacked and processed in Pixinsight with WBPP, BlurXt,  Noise Xt. and Curve Transformation. A very simple process.  PIX did well stacking all 932 frames.  Took 10 hrs - but it got there in the end! 

Version G: 20 months later,  glad I kept the WBPP master file from version F.  My processing technique is slowly improving. For this version, the WBPP master file from version F was processed using SPCC. Then stars removed with with StarNet2, and sharpened with Blurx. Starless image processed Narrowband Normalization to enhance OII signal, and then denoised with NoiseX . Starsand replaced with Screenstars. Very happy with this final image.

Version I: Applied curves in PS to brighten  though lost some resolution in the tadpole head. Cropped along the bottom edge.