This large emission nebula is around 100 lightyears across and 12,000 lightyears distant. It is powered by the star cluster NGC 1893, to be seen curving just to the left of centre of this image. The two eponymous 'tadpoles' can be seen to the lower left of centre.
These tadpoles consist of denser, cooler gas and dust, and are approximately 10 light-years long and potentially sites of ongoing star formation. Sculpted by the winds and radiation of the cluster’s stars, the tadpoles are pointing their tails outwards, away from the nebula’s central regions.
This false-coloured narrowband (Ha, OIII and SII) image is the result of 6.5h of data capture from Horsham, over two evenings in January 2022. The gold-coloured image has been mapped to an HOO2 palette, and because of the greater weight allocated to OIII, shows the extent of the nebula well.
A ZWO ASI2600MM Pro camera was used from, with an 8-inch Teleskop-Service Ritchey-Chretien Cassegrain reflector.
Date: 17/01/2022
Location: Horsham, West Sussex
Photographer: Graham Wilcock
