Flaming Star Nebula - IC 405

   .The Flaming Star Nebula IC405 is an emission/reflection nebula in constellation Auriga. It lies
about 1,500 lyrs away with visual magnitude +10. The bright star illuminating the nebula is AE Auriga
which is moving through gas and dust making it look like a "Flaming Star".  About 2.7 million years
ago, the star AE Auriga had a close encounter with another star in the Great Orion Nebula.  It was so
close that it was ejected from Orion and became a "runaway star" in Auriga.

   The Flaming Star Nebula can be a challenging object to capture. The above photo is comprised
of 3 hours of stacked exposure time.  Image stacking is a technique in astrophotography to obtain long exposure
times but eliminate unwanted events such as a streaking satellite or other atmospheric anomaly.   


{  Photo:  R Lang & Associates }