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Rare nebula 48 EP

Flame Nebula

RA 85.2537° · Dec -2.4538° · openngc

Real photograph of Flame Nebula 📷 Real photo
Chuck Ayoub (CC0)
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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
48 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Star-forming region +14
  • Bigger on the sky than the full Moon +12
  • Nebula +8
  • Has a proper name +8
  • In Orion's hunting ground +6
Total score 48

2 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Nebula · +8
  • Has a proper name · +8
  • Star-forming region · +14
  • In Orion's hunting ground · +6
  • Bigger on the sky than the full Moon · +12

Trivia

What it actually is

  • What it actually is. An H II region: a cloud of hydrogen being ionised by the ultraviolet flood from hot young stars inside it. Every one is a star factory caught mid-production.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 11 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Orion.
  • Seen from everywhere. It sits almost on the celestial equator, so it can be seen from essentially anywhere on Earth.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around December — that's when to go looking.

Its true colour

  • Its true colour. That signature crimson is hydrogen-alpha at 656 nanometres — electrons falling back onto protons, one photon at a time.

What's in a name

  • Named. Notable enough to have earned a proper name, not just a catalogue number.

How we came to know it

  • The Index Catalogue. The IC was the 1895 and 1908 supplement to the NGC — the first catalogue in history to be filled largely with objects found on photographic plates rather than by eye.

Properties

aliases
Orion B
constellation
Ori
dso type
HII
mag
11
name
Flame Nebula
named
yes
radial velocity kms
11
redshift
0
size arcmin
90

Nearby objects

About Flame Nebula

Flame Nebula is a rare nebula. It sits in the constellation Ori and shines at apparent magnitude 11.

An H II region: a cloud of hydrogen being ionised by the ultraviolet flood from hot young stars inside it. Every one is a star factory caught mid-production.

How to see it

Look for Flame Nebula in the constellation Ori. At apparent magnitude 11, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, Flame Nebula is best seen from a dark site away from city lights, and when it is above the horizon depends on your latitude and the time of year. The visibility panel above works out tonight's viewing window for your saved location.

Why Flame Nebula is a rare nebula

Flame Nebula scores 48 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 2 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Nebula, Has a proper name, Star-forming region, In Orion's hunting ground and Bigger on the sky than the full Moon — each earned for a real, measurable property of the object. Rarity on Spacedle is never random: the more remarkable an object's astrophysics, the more badges it collects, the higher it scores, and the rarer it ranks.