IC 410 — Tadpoles Nebula
Auriga · Celestron C8 SC XLT · ZWO ASI2600MC Pro · Sky-Watcher AZ-EQ6 PRO · 2025-12-28
Acquisition
| Filter | Exposures | Sessions |
|---|---|---|
| Optolong L-Ultimate 2" | 66 × 300s | 2 |
Total integration: 5h 30m
Astrometric Data
Field Center
05h 22m 21.1s
+33° 23′ 49″
Pixel Scale
0.611 ″/px
Orientation
73.49°
Field Radius
0.607°
Objects in Field
Main Challenges
IC 410 spans roughly 1.5° across the sky — significantly wider than the C8's 1.05° × 0.70° field of view at f/6.3. The framing was a deliberate choice: ignore the full nebula, lock onto the tadpoles themselves. Guiding through the Off-Axis Guider at 0.61"/px required careful calibration. Moon at ~47% phase for part of the session — the L-Ultimate dual-band filter handled it cleanly.
Process Notes
IC 410 is an emission nebula in Auriga surrounding the open cluster NGC 1893, about 12,000 light-years away. Its defining feature is a pair of dense, elongated gas streamers — the Tadpoles — sculpted by the radiation and stellar winds from the hot young stars of NGC 1893. The structures are active star-forming regions in their own right, with protostars embedded in the knots at the tadpoles' heads.
Imaged over two nights (Dec 26–28, 2025) from Torria, Liguria, with a half-lit moon for part of the run.
The C8 vs IC 410
The C8 at 1280mm f/6.3 with the 0.63× reducer gives a field of view of roughly 1.05° × 0.70° — far too tight to frame the full nebula complex. That constraint became the concept: frame only the tadpoles, get close, let the compressed scale reveal fine structure that wider rigs miss.
At 0.61"/px the individual gaseous pillars and the ionisation edges around the tadpoles' heads resolve with a level of detail the widefield rigs can't touch.
The HOO Palette
The Optolong L-Ultimate passes Hα and OIII simultaneously onto the colour sensor. In HOO, hydrogen (Hα) maps to red and orange, oxygen (OIII) maps to blue and cyan. The result emphasises the ionisation contrast between the dense Hα-bright filaments and the OIII-rich diffuse nebula surrounding them.
Software
Stacked and processed in PixInsight. Acquisition managed with N.I.N.A., guiding via the Celestron Off-Axis Guider, autofocus via ZWO EAF.
Behind the Scenes
Raw acquisition data from this target was not retained in the NINA archive. The image was acquired via N.I.N.A. on the C8 0.63× + ASI2600MC Pro rig but the raw FITS frames were removed after stacking, and the session logs are not recoverable. No per-session breakdown is available.