IC405 Flaming Star is beautiful emission-reflection nebula in constellation of Auriga. It is placed in rich area od Milky Way about 1500 light years away from us. Bright star in its front is irregular variable AE Aurigae with visual apparent magnitude about 6mag, so barely visible under dark sky with naked eye. This star proper motion indicates its origin is placed somewhere in Orion Belt area.
The name Flaming Star nebula comes from the way it looks when observed visually with telescope. Nebulosity that surrounds AE Aur star looks like flames. And it is also both emission (so hydrogen alpha) and reflection (so interstellar dust) nebula, but in my picture below so far only emission part is visible. Reflection blueish part needs to wait for some dark sky imaging.
This image has been taken in February, 2017 at my backyard with TS130 Photoline refractor and QHY163M camera on EQ6 mount. Using Baader HaRGB filters with exposure times 360 and 3×50 minutes. Both transparency and seeing were average.
Large version https://astrojolo.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/2017-02-25-I405HRGB2.jpg
Large version https://astrojolo.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/2017-02-25-I405H.jpg
Clear skies!
