IC 410 The Tadpole Nebula

Last week we were lucky to have an almost full week of clear night time sky with little to no moon light, so I made the most of it.  I managed to run imaging sessions on all 5 weekday nights and this is the result of one my efforts from 20th January 2023.

IC 410 is also know as the Tadpole Nebula and can be found in the constellation of Auriga which is position high overhead in the current night sky.  This time of year is one of my favourites times of year for astronomy and imaging because I get home from work just before it gets dark, but that can be up and running in the observatory within half an hour of getting home.  All very convenient!  

At the moment, I have my Altair Quadband filter on the imaging train, along with the 26c OSC camera, so while I have that in place, I've been trying to target suitable emission nebulae for imaging.  That also means that I only need to take a single set of calibration frames that can then be used on all the targets from the week.

Imaging the same types of nebulae also means that I could utilise the most recent tools and scripts I have built into my PixInsight workflow.  I couldn't decide on how best to frame the nebula, to either crop it, or show it in a wider field of view.  So, I went with both!

Cropped image of IC 410.  Note the two dust clouds just off centre of the nebula which represent the tadpoles.

The uncropped version of the same image.  I like this wider field of view because it gives a better indication of the extent of the emission.

In total, this image was produced using:

124 x 98 sec light frames (approx. 3 hours total)

50 x flat frames

50 x flat dark frames

50 x dark frames

Altair Starware 80 ED-R

SkyWatcher EQ6-R mount

Altair 26c OSC Camera

Altair Quadband filter

Over the coming evenings, I will be spending time processing the data on my other targets.  Until then, clear skies and thanks for reading!