This pair of large, faint emission nebulae are difficult to observe visually, requiring moderately large apertures to be detected. IC 405, on the right, is also known as the Flaming Star Nebula and contains the hot, blue variable star AE Aurigae. Radiation from AE Aurigae causes the gas in IC 405 to glow red, while dust creates the bluish  reflection nebula near the star. AE Aurigae formed in the consteallation Orion and is traveling through IC 405 at about 100 kilometers per second. IC 410 contains the open star cluster NGC 1893, which is actually easier to see in a telescope than the surrounding nebulosity.

Equipment: ST-10XME/Nikkor 300mm f/4 lens/G-11
F-ratio: f/5.6
Exposures: RRGB: R 8 x 12 minutes: G 8 x 3 minutes: B 8 x 3 minutes: GB binned 2x2
Date: December 3, 2004
Location: Landers, California, USA
Technical Notes: Individual exposures were sigma combined and the RGB image created in Registar 1.0. Unsharp Mask was applied to the bright portions luminance image at 100% with a radius of 1 pixel and a threshold of 0. Gaussian Blur was applied to the dim portions with a radius of 1 pixel. The same Gaussian Blur was applied to the RGB image.