This is my second attempt at the Flaming Star Nebula, I gave it a go as part of a widefield shot with my RASA 11" in 2020
Flaming Star Nebula but since I've been using Pixinsight to process things are looking a lot better (makes you want to go back and redo every decent thing you've shot!) so I thought "it was time for a closeup"! The scope on the mount right now is 1216mm so this shot is about twice as close as the RASA shot.
This is both an emission
and a reflection nebula. The bright star responsible for all this is AE Aurigae which, according to SkySafariPro used to reside in the Orion Nebula! A close gravitational encounter with the star we now call Mu Coluimbae resulted in the ejection of both stars from the nebula complex. The Flaming Star Nebula is about 1500 light-years away which is about the same as the Orion Nebula so this is not as farfetched as it might seem at first.
AE Aurigae is the 'engine' that lights up the emission nebula (red) and the wispy white dusty stuff that looks like the 'smoke' that gives this object its name.
On my previous attempt, I had a hard time getting good signal strength on the 'smoke' but on this image, it just popped right out. I'm very happy with the new focuser and motor from Moonlite on this rig!
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