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The Flaming Star Nebula

A cloud of gas lit up by a star that does not belong there, a runaway passing through at speed.

Photographed by TPN Explorer from a garden in Leicester in the early hours of 4 October 2026, with a Dwarf 3 and a duo band filter. A two panel mosaic of 350 frames of 15 seconds, 1 hour 28 minutes in all. Tap the picture for a larger version.

Seeing it from the UK and Ireland

Both sit in Auriga, the constellation with the bright star Capella. It climbs from the north east on autumn evenings and is high overhead on winter nights, so from October to March it is easy to find. Your eyes will not show either cloud, and a telescope shows very little, because human eyes see no colour at that brightness. They are camera objects. This picture was taken from a town garden in the small hours, about an hour and a half of light in total, through a filter that lets through the red of hydrogen and blocks most of the street lighting.

The cloud at the top right is the Flaming Star Nebula, IC 405. Its name comes from the way its streaks of gas look like flames, and from the star that lights it. That star, AE Aurigae, is the bright one just inside the cloud.

AE Aurigae was not born here. About two million years ago it was thrown out of the young cluster at the heart of the Orion Nebula, when two pairs of stars came too close to each other. It has been crossing the sky ever since, and it happens to be passing through this cloud now. It is very hot, and its light makes the hydrogen around it glow red.

The cloud at the bottom left is a different object, IC 410, and it only looks close. The Flaming Star is about 1,500 light years away. IC 410 is about 12,000, eight times further. Its glow comes from its own cluster of young stars, NGC 1893, sitting in the middle of it, whose light and winds are hollowing the cloud out.

IC 410 is known for the Tadpoles, two dense knots of gas about ten light years long with tails pointing away from the cluster. They are small at that distance, and it takes a deeper picture than this to show them clearly.

The numbers

Also called
IC 405, Sharpless 229, and Caldwell 31
Constellation
Auriga
Distance
About 1,500 light years
Size in the sky
About 37 by 19 arcminutes, a little more than a full Moon
What it is
A cloud of gas lit by a star passing through it
The star lighting it
AE Aurigae, thrown out of the Orion Nebula about two million years ago
The other cloud
IC 410, about 12,000 light years away, lit by the cluster NGC 1893
Visible to the eye
No, it is a photographic target
Best months from the UK and Ireland
October to March

To find out whether it is up tonight, and when it gets properly dark where you are, see Sky Tonight.