Copyright and reproduction policy
Yours truly
IC 405, The Flaming Star Nebula, in Auriga
The Flaming Star nebula is a very large emission nebula (reddish areas) with some areas of reflected light (bluish areas around the brightest star, AE Aurigae) and only a portion of it is shown here. AE Aurigae lies just under 1500 light years distant and provides much of the radiation that causes the nebula to glow. However, according to Burnham, the association of the star with IC405 is due to chance—the two did not evolve together. In fact, some evidence suggests that AE Aurigae and two other stars were expelled from the neighboring constellation, Orion, about 2.6 million years ago (Astrophysical Journal, 1954; vol. 119, p.625). In effect, AE Aurigae is just passing through IC405 and lighting it up as it goes.
A very nice film image of the entire area is available at http://www.astropix.com/HTML/B_WINTER/IC405.HTM.
| Date | 2002-10-02 |
| Scope |
Astro-Physics 130 EDFs refractor at f/4.5 with ST-10XME CCD camera at -15 °C on the A-P 1200 GTO mount. Guided with the internal ST-10 guide chip. |
| Exposure |
5 x 5 min each with 1x1 binning with regular R, G, and B SBIG filters in SBIG CFW-8 filter wheel. |
| Processing |
Raw frames debloomed with Wodaski's Debloomer plug-in. Stacked and RGB combined in MaxIm 3.08 with R=1.25, G=1.0, B=1.65 weighting. Stretched with levels and curves in PhotoShop 7.0. |