What is this?

[EA2007]

Hi all,

Wondered if anyone knows what the blob is above Auriga, to the upper left of Capella?

[Sp@ce_d]

Not flare from the moon is it? It's around the area of NGC2281

[EA2007]

It might be a flare on the lens from the moon, though its quite random, usually lens flares are straight or arcs due to the convex/concave nature of them.

The only thing it looks like to me is a comet, but there isn't any in that area according to Heavens Above and its quite large, way larger that 17pHolmes was.

Anyway, a kick-ass image none the less.

[Sp@ce_d]

Yup nice shot. Have you got more than one frame with this in it? I take it you didn't see it until you looked at the image? If it isn't an artefact then scale wise it looks massive! When I first looked I thought M31 but that's way lower NW.

[Sparrow]

The nearest deep sky object to that is UGC 3475, but that is magnitude 14.2 so there's no way it's that.

I would say that is most definately lens flare from the moon.

[saturn5]

Definately lens flare.