Modified Canon 1100D through an Altair Astro Starwave 70mm ED refractor with AA 0.8x flattener/reducer.
A total of 12 x 5 min exposures at ISO 400.
The FOV is approx 2.5 x 3.75 degrees, the reducer having converted the focal length from 420 to 330mm. The focal ratio decreased from F6 to F4.8. North is up.
IC 405 Flaming Star Nebula (Caldwell 31) is on the right, a diffuse emission/reflection nebula. It surrounds the irregular variable star AE Aurigae, a runaway star believed to originate in the Orion’s Belt area in Orion.
The nebula is approximately 1,500 light years distant and is five light years across. . It has an apparent magnitude of 6.0 and measures about 37 x19 arcmins in size.
The Flaming Star Nebula has two regions, an emission nebula and a reflection nebula. The bluish region’s colour comes from the blue light of AE Aurigae, as reflected by the surrounding dust.
The nebula is mainly made up of hydrogen, but also contains carbon-rich dust, which comprises the blue regions of the nebula and reflects the light of AE Aurigae. This blue component is imperfectly represented in the image.
AE Aurigae, the central star in the Flaming Star Nebula, is blue O-type main sequence dwarf, mag 5.78 – 6.08.
IC 410 on the left is a faint and dusty emission nebula of more than 100 light-years across, about 12,000 light-years away in Auriga.
The cloud of glowing gas is sculpted by stellar winds and radiation from the embedded open star cluster catalogued as NGC 1893, which is just about 4 million years old. The massive, hot stars of this cluster are all very young, having only been recently formed from IC 410. IC 410 has two tadpole-shaped elements, which gives the name to this 'Tadpole Nebula' – but these do not show up in this image.
Date: 08/12/2015
