The Spider and the Fly
Tags: Cosmos (770)
Emission Nebula (93)
Auriga (21)
IC 417 (3)
NGC 1931 (3)
Reflection Nebula (60)
Interstellar (2)
Berkshire UK (1)
Copyright: Dave Boddington
Model: gpt-4.1
Prompt version: 1.0
Model: gpt-4.1
Prompt version: 1.0
Will the spider ever catch the fly? Not if both are large emission nebulas toward the constellation of the Charioteer (Auriga).
The spider-shaped gas cloud in the image center is actually an emission nebula labelled IC 417, while the smaller fly-shaped cloud on the left is dubbed NGC 1931 and is both an emission nebula and a reflection nebula.
About 10,000 light-years distant, both nebulas harbor young star clusters. For scale, the more compact NGC 1931 (Fly) is about 10 light-years across.
The featured deep image, captured over 20 hours during late January in Berkshire UK, also shows more diffuse and red-glowing interstellar gas and dust.
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