Last December, I pointed my telescope at this little spot in the constellation of Auriga, in the hope of capturing a number of interesting targets within a single frame. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting to see such a spectacular vista. There is a lot going on in this image, including two very dramatic, dusty nebulous regions and a few dazzling star clusters thrown in for effect. Starting in the lower left corner at a distance of 12 thousand light years there are the tadpoles, so called because, well, there are two quite noticeable tadpoles swimming toward the dark patch in the middle of the nebula. These tadpoles are actually very similar in nature to the “pillars of creation” from the famous Hubble image of the Eagle Nebula – areas of dense nebulous material that’s been excavated by radiation from the central star cluster. Lighter gaseous material is blown back by these stellar winds toward the perimeters, leaving behind these sinuous shapes. The tadpoles will likely continue to be a source of star formation into the future. Moving diagonally upwards and to the right takes us to another large nebula, 10 thousand light years distant, known as the Spider. While the spider shape is not as obvious as the tadpoles, it’s not too hard to make out the creature’s legs extending outward on both sides of the bright central region. There is a lot of active star formation in this nebula too, especially in the oval clumps and the knotted strands in the surrounding bluish gas clouds. Two the right of the spider are two rather lovely star clusters, labeled NGC 1907 and NGC 1912. These are a little closer to us, at distances of 4.5 and 3.5 thousand light years respectively.
