In this instance, the tadpoles are features of IC410 – a star-forming region in the constellation Auriga, the charioteer. The image below represents four hours of 6-minute frames taken through the 130mm f/5 astrograph in my backyard. The date was 1/5/22. A four-band, narrow-band filter was used to eliminate the noise of city light sources and moon.
The tadpole features are in the upper, right-hand part of emission nebula. They are similar to the nebulosity in the famous Hubble image of the Eagle Nebula’s “pillars of creation.” The center of the larger nebula is populated by young stars that have coalesced from the nebula’s material and now provide the ionizing radiation that makes the nebula glow. This nebula is part of a larger star-forming complex that includes IC405 – the Flaming Star nebula.
