IC410 and The Tadpoles in color

17:26 8/3/2009 UTC

IC410 is a HII region in Auriga. This interesting nebula and open cluster hosts two interesting nebulae Sim129 and Sim130. Their appearance resembles tadpoles swimming in the pool of ionized hydrogen. Some sources even titles the object as The Galactic Sperm Nebula. In the middle of the nebula is associated open cluster NGC 1893. It is believed to be one of the youngest known clusters in the sky.

I think I hit a very dim first light object here. I had some problems with noise in the first processing run, but after a while I noticed I had some serious errors in my calibration of the light frames. Anyway, finally the sky was co-operating and I got plenty of imaging time. I did both H-alfa and OIII channels. This image is Ha:OIII:OIII with Ha luminance.

[High Resolution]

Camera: Atik Instruments 4000LE | Telescope: Skywatcher ED80 Pro 80mm f7.5 refractor, William Optics 0.8x focal reducer | Mount: Vixen GP-D2, Boxdoerfer PowerFlex MTS-3SLP drive controller | Filters: Astronomik H-alpha 13nm 2", Astronomik OIII 13nm 2" | Guiding: , The Imaging Source DMK 21AU04.AS CCD camera, Orion ShortTube 80mm f5 refractor, Stark-Labs PHD Guiding | Exposure: Ha: 12x600s(2h) + OIII: binned 2x2 9x600s(1h30m) f6 CCD @ -20°C | Software: CCDWare CCDStack, Adobe Photoshop CS4, Artemis Capture | Location: 60°31'N 26°52'E (Koivula/Kotka,FI)