IC 410 is located 12 000 light years from Earth in the Auriga constellation, and is nicknamed the Tadpole Nebula because of the tadpole-shaped clouds of dark dust that appear to be swimming towards the centre. The ‘tadpoles’ are dense streams of dust and gas about 10 lightyears long that may well be sites of star formation.
The Tadpole Nebula is a region of ionised hydrogen gas spanning over 100 lightyears across that’s carved and sculpted by streams of charged particles emanating from open star cluster NGC 1893. NGC 1893 is about 4 million years old: the blink of an eye in cosmic terms.
IC 410
Photographed with the MN 190 mm reflector telescope and the Atik 360EX monchrome CCD camera in Stuvsta on December 27th, 2025. Exposure was 20 min for each of R, G, B, and L, and 40 min for Ha. Very strong winds made me use 1 min exposures only. Half moon up. Postprocessing in Pixinsight with Blur Xterminator and using the new VeraLux stretch routine.
IC 410
Photographed with the MN 190 mm reflector telescope and the Atik 360EX monchrome CCD camera in Stuvsta on December 27th, 2025. Exposure was 20 min for each of R, G, B, and L, and 40 min for Ha. Very strong winds made me use 1 min exposures only. Half moon up. Postprocessing in Pixinsight with Blur Xterminator and using the new VeraLux stretch routine.