IC 10 is a dwarf irregular galaxy in the constellation of Cassiopeia. It is the only known starburst galaxy in the Local Group of galaxies and has a distance of about 3 million lightyears. It lies in the galactic plane and all the bright stars in the image are foreground stars belonging to the Milky Way. The morphology and absolute size of IC 10 is similar to our neighbour galaxy SMC (Small Magellanic Cloud). The diffuse yellowish areas consists of older stars. The red filaments which emit most of their light in the H-alpha line are HII regions with ongoing star formation. It has apparent dimensions of 6.8 x 5.9 arc minutes and an apparent magnitude of 10.4.

Imaging data:
Date: Oct 10-11 2008
Location: New Ringgold PA
Optics: Meade LX200R at f/10
Mount: Paramount ME
Camera: SBIG ST-8XME / CFW-8
Guiding: Integral self guiding
Exposure: Luminance: 9x10 minutes unbinned, R:9x6 min G:9x5 min B:9x8 min binned 2x2.
for a total of 4 hours 21 minutes
Processing: Image acquisition using CCD Autopilot. Initial processing was done using Maxim DL with subsequent processing with Photoshop.