One may wonder what the three of them have in common. They occupy a very small place in space.
IC410 (bottom right), referred to as the Tadpoles Nebula, is a dusty emission nebula located in the constellation of Auriga about 12,000 ly from Earth. It is part of a larger star forming region that also contains the huge Flaming Star Nebula C 31 (upper right).
The gas structures in IC 410 are lit by the radiation from the open star cluster NGC1893 that lies in its center. This star cluster is about 4 million years old, but in astronomical terms it is still very young, with hot, massive stars.
At the top-left of the star cluster two more dense structures are visible. These are similar to the famous Pillar of Creation and they are composed of dust and gas leftover from the formation of the star cluster and are very likely to give birth to more stars in the future. As can be seen in the picture, these structures point away from the center of the nebula. This is because of the stellar winds and radiation pressure from the stars in NGC 1893. Due to these structure’s shape, the nebula is also called the Tadpoles Nebula.
IC417, located towards the middle of the picture, is named the Spider nebula – requires imagination but in context with NGC1931 (The Fly Nebula) located on the left middle of the image it makes perfect sense.
When I started imaging this target I really had no idea there would be so much nebulosity – everywhere! The very bright stars of the Tadpoles were visible, but the structures from the Flaming Star Nebula region were a nice surprise.
I printed this image on metal with an acrylic wall mount for my own collection.
