Found in the constellation Auriga at an estimated distance of 12,000 light-years, IC 410 is an emission nebula surrounding the open cluster of young stars designated NGC 1893.  These bright stars are estimated to have been formed only about 4 million years ago.  This cluster of stars is located in the upper right portion of the image above.  The intense radiation and stellar winds of the cluster have sculpted the two “tadpole” shaped structures that are the subject of this celestial portrait.

The image above was assembled from two narrowband filtered images.  These consisted of HA mapped to red and OIII mapped to green and blue.  The Ha filtered image was also used for the luminance channel.  The resulting image is a false color image that approximates the true color of the nebula.  The stars were imaged using regular red, green, and blue filters.  These "true color" stars were superimposed over the narrowband background image.

¹http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap060111.html