IC 410 - The Cosmic Tadpoles
IC 410, also known as the Tadpole Nebula, is an emission nebula located about 12,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Auriga.
The nebula contains at its core the open cluster NGC 1893.
Nestled in the constellation Auriga, the IC 410 nebula houses two clouds of gas and dust shaped like tadpoles.
The advancement in telescope power has led to the discovery of more unusual celestial objects. Take the emission nebula IC 410, located 12,000 light-years away. It was far too faint to be seen in the instrument of John Herschel (Caroline Herschel's nephew). Observing the constellation Auriga in 1827, this British astronomer discovered only one star cluster, NGC 1893, of magnitude 7. It was only much later that the faint swirls of the IC 410 nebula (magnitude 10) could be detected all around it.
Then astrophotography emerged. Long exposures and the evolution of sensors revealed unexpected details, such as two cosmic tadpoles (or spermatozoa).
Dusty Sculptures :
IC 410 is an emission nebula, a huge molecular cloud about 100 light-years in diameter. This cloud shines because its atoms are excited by the radiation from the stars in the NGC 1893 cluster. These young stars, only 4 million years old, spew strong stellar winds that also sculpt two cosmic tadpoles. These are curious structures made of denser gas and dust. They measure about 10 light-years across. Blown by the stellar winds, the tails of these tadpoles stretch away from the heart of the star cluster.
IC410 on the sky Atlas from Asiair Plus
Set up
Fra400 on AVX mount
ASI533 MC Pro for imaging
ASI220 mini for guiding via OAG Zwo (Off-Axis-Guider)
Antlia Duo Band 5 nm
Control via ASIAIR PLUS
ASI533MC Pro camera on the right side as imager and ASI 220 mini on the left side as guide camera
The session
45 frames x 600” each
Total integration : 7 hours 30’
I started to shoot this object a few weeks ago, but last week was quite challenging. The object was almost due west, not too far from the horizon. IC410 gave me a hard time due to guiding because too much turbulence, but I didn't give up.
I usually never shoot to the west, but I didn't want to leave a file open and finish it next winter. I needed at least 7 hours to get a decent final image.
This object will be almost not visible in a few days.
Single image of 10 minutes exposure full of satellites, flights and shooting stars.
The good thing is all those objects disappear with the stack of many pictures.
Processing
Calibration, Alignment and Stacking via Siril
Processing via Pixinsight
Procedure via PixInsight :
Dynamic Crop
Gradient correction
Image Solver
SPCC
BlurX Terminator (Correct only)
NoiseX Terminator
StarX Terminator to remove the stars
SetiAstro on stars image for stretch
EZ Suite Stretch on the starless image.
SCNR to remove the green noise on both images
Correct magenta stars on the stars image
Narrowband Normalization on the starless image
Local histogram equalization on the starless image (2 times)
Curve transformation on the starless image to bring the details
Dark structure enhance
Noise X Terminator to remove the noise
Pixel Math to bring the stars back
Clear Sky !
Crop on the Tadpoles
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