Sharpless 236 - The Tadpole Nebula
IC 410 commonly known as the Tadpole Nebula, is an emission nebula situated about 12,000 light-years away from our planet. Located in the constellation Auriga. Auriga was seen right above my balcony this winter and that made this nebula a perfect target for me to capture! IC 410 gets its nickname from the two long, dark structures of gas and dust within the nebula that resemble tadpoles. These tadpoles are actually dense regions of gas being sculpted by intense radiation and stellar wind from young stars in the nearby star cluster NGC 1893, which lies embedded inside the nebula.
This nebula is known for its active star-forming regions, where new stars are continually being born from the surrounding clouds of gas and dust.
Using Seti Astro’s ‘What’s in My Image’ script, I also found something special in my image, two carbon stars. Carbon stars are a special type of red giant star whose atmospheres contain more carbon than oxygen. And because of this, the stars have a deep orange appearance. I consider stars like these to be hidden gems, and they’re fun to find in my work, just like white dwarfs, Wolf-Rayet stars and pulsars.
For this image, I used the same color palette as my image of NGC 281 - the Pacman Nebula. The HOO (Ha, OIII) color palette, which is great to bring out fine details in nebula and it gives a really good contrast between Ha and OIII.
Acquisition details:
Calibration frames:
20 Darks
20 Flats
20 Dark flats
Bortle: 5
Optolong L-eNhance lights:
6hr 35min
79x 300sec
Gear used:
🔭 Askar 103APO
⚙️ Skywatcher EQ6-R Pro
📸 ZWO ASI294MC Pro
🌌 Optolong L-eNhance
Sharpless 131 - The Elephant’s Trunk Nebula
IC 1396, better known as the Elephant's Trunk Nebula, is an emission nebula located about 2,400 light-years away in the constellation Cepheus. As I’m writing this, Cepheus is clearly visible from my balcony, which made this target an ideal choice to capture once again.
The nebula gets its nickname from a long, dark, winding column of dense gas and dust that resembles the trunk of an elephant. This structure is shaped by intense radiation and strong stellar winds from nearby young stars in the open cluster Trumpler 37, which lies within the nebula itself.
Back in 2023, I created my first image of IC 1396 using my WO Redcat 51 MK2.5 telescope and an Optolong L-eNhance filter. Honestly, I wasn’t very satisfied with the final result. I made a small but important mistake... my focus was completely off. Since then, I’ve learned a lot about both this nebula and astrophotography in general.
I noticed that some astrophotographers used only RGB filters for this object, and I really wanted to try that myself. Especially the hole in the trunk with the two yellow stars looks amazing in broadband images. So here it is! My latest version of IC 1396, the Elephant’s Trunk Nebula, captured with a more natural broadband look using the L-Pro light pollution filter, without relying on the typical HOO palette.
Here is a close-up of the trunk itself. From top to bottom, the entire dark column of gas and dust measures roughly 20 light-years in length. That’s 189,200,000,000,000 km!
Acquisition details:
Calibration frames:
20 Darks
20 Flats
20 Dark flats
Bortle: 5
Optolong L-Pro lights:
10hr 51min
217x 180sec
Gear used:
🔭 Askar 103APO
⚙️ Skywatcher EQ6-R Pro
📸 ZWO ASI294MC Pro
🌌 Optolong L-Pro
Sharpless 105 - The Crescent Nebula
NGC6888 - The Crescent Nebula is an emission nebula with a bright Wolf-Rayet-star in the middle of it. It's located approximately 5000 lightyears from our Earth. My picture also displays the faint Soap Bubble Nebula (Ju 1) which was discovered in 2007/2008. For this image I choose to use a HOO colour palette which was possible to create with with my OSC camera and dualband Ha/Oiii filter.
Acquisition details:
Optolong L-eNhance lights:
4hr 05min
49x 300sec
Calibration frames:
20 Darks
20 Flats
20 Dark flats
Bortle: 5
Gear used:
🔭 Askar 103APO
⚙️ Skywatcher EQ6-R Pro
📸 ZWO ASI294MC Pro
🌌 Optolong L-eNhance