This is a wide FOV of IC405, the Flaming Star Nebula (upper right) and IC410, an open star cluster with nebular field (lower left) in the Auriga Constellation (Aur).

I highly recommend Annals of the Deep Sky by Jeff Kanipe and Dennis Webb. Much of the following information is from Volume 2 of their series from the chapter on Auriga.

AE Aurigae and IC405 - Revision G

AE Aurigae is an Orion variable star, with tight magnitudes between 6 and 5.78, classified between being an O- and B-type star, with distance between 1,000 - 2,000 ly. It has been dubbed a "runaway star" and associated with several other stars as having originated from the same location in the Trapezium Cluster of Orion. The theory is that these stars originated from an open cluster and were ejected following a gravitational interaction some 2.5 million years ago.

AE Aurigae is the bright star in the foreground of IC405 (center star of Revision G), the Flaming Star Nebula, which at the present time is being illuminated by the star as the runaway passes through. It is both an emission and reflection nebula of large size. As the star is moving through the region quite rapidly with respect to the dust and gas of the nebula, there has not been enough time for the material to react as it would were it physically associated with the star and had a small relative velocity. Instead it's a dynamic situation that has created a unique nebula.

There is a bow shock wave trailing the star, but I am unable to determine if any of that is visible in the three NB wavelengths of this image. It's possible the dim curved structures just below the star are due to this bow shock, but I can only speculate. I also was unable to get any information about the dynamics of the nebula other than to note the ropy texture above the star and long fainter vertical structure along the right edge of the image. Whether or not the latter is associated with the star's rapid relative motion is unknown to me. Additionally, there is a weak OIII signal around AE Aurigae and perhaps a hint of blue color in the image, but it is swamped by the Halpha and SII.

IC410 and Tadpoles Sim 129 and Sim 130 - Revision F

IC410 or NGC1893 or SH2-236 is "a just born cluster" using their description. Its distance is estimated at 11,000 - 16,000 ly with size around 70 ly in diameter. It is a young open cluster consisting of around 50 stars visible with highest magnitude of 9, mostly 11. My annotation (using PixInsight's Annotation script) has marked several around 9. The cluster is inside the emission nebula, having cleared out a central region with its stellar wind.

I have captured the two tadpole streamers, Sim 129 and 130, upper and lower, respectively, which are more easily seen with the image enlarged in Revision F. These are described as streams of cooler gas of 10 ly length associated with star formation.

Some additional intriguing facts about this cluster are that it is quite young, perhaps only 3 million years old, and that in a few more million years it is expected to be quite bright and maybe even visible to the naked eye. For now we'll need to content ourselves with viewing through large telescopes or capturing images such as this.

Imaging and Processing Notes

I had seen some narrowband (NB) images of this region on the web and was impressed by the color contrast between the two targets given the much higher OIII signal (blue) of IC410 in contrast with IC405. My combination of scope and camera frames the two adequately, however in retrospect I wish I had not been quite so aggressive with the dithering as I lost more of the left and right margins than I would have wished. This just gives me an excuse to revisit it in the future and try again.

One processing note I wish to mention here is that I prefer to remove the typical purple color of the stars that results in the SHO palette, but I have observed, and others have commented, that this leaves the many stars bright white in color, and this can overwhelm the nebula colors that I wish to showcase. My wife suggested I blend images from before and after this purple zapping process, and now I prefer this more balanced result. The purple is subdued such that I am not annoyed by it, and the resulting white is also subdued such that it doesn't draw attention away from the colors.

I hope you enjoy the result. Thank you for your attention.