Window mode follows your eyes with your camera, in this browser only: no picture or position leaves your device.

IC10 (HaIRG, 22.75 hr)

2025-10-30

Classification: Photograph
Museum: Wikimedia Commons
Rights: CC BY 4.0, as the museum states it.
Who can see it: Teens profiles and older: its museum says too little about what it shows to place it for younger viewers. How works are placed

About this work

IC 10 is the only known starburst galaxy in the Local Group, but it is located behind the plane of the Milky Way in Cassiopeia, which obscures it from view. Infrared light is less absorbed by dust and helps reveal the galaxy among a plethora of stars within the Milky Way.

A side effect of this IRG palette is that star forming regions, glowing with the light of H-alpha, show up in green rather than red as is usually the case in RGB images. These regions can be seen scattered throughout IC 10. The H-alpha emission was enhanced with extra data collected specifically in that band, with the continuum emission subtracted from the red filter data. Without enhancement, the H-II regions appear more of a mint color.

In the bottom right corner is the eclipsing binary star TW Cassiopeiae. The red patches between the diffraction spikes are artifacts from the microlenses in the IMX533 sensor, whose anti-reflective coatings are not as effective at near infrared wavelengths.

Mount: Sky-Watcher Wave 150i (strain wave German equatorial mount)

Telescope: Apertura CarbonStar RC8 (Ritchey–Chrétien telescope, 203 mm aperture, 1624 mm focal length, no reducer or flattener)