This is V838 Monocerotis (V838 Mon) for short. It is a red super giant star (Coords Lat -3.823433° , Lon -73.978235°) in the constellation of Monoceros almost half way in between Sirius and Procyon. Recently the star flared up bursting out with a bright light, almost like a nova. Light from the star radiated in all directions, so the light from the star itself reached our eyes first. As the light travelled away from the star in all directions like ripples in a pond it encountered dust and gas in space months and even years after leaving the star. As it struck these clouds it then reflected light which we were then able to see, the same number of months or years later. The effect, called Light Echoes, is like a ripple in a pond. As it expands we see it grow into a larger and larger ring. This video combines several photographs of this even taken by the Hubble Space Telescope from eary 2002 until 2006 into a nice time lapse of the event.

Accompanying the video is a musical score from the amazing Mychal Danna which appeared in the McLaughlin Planetarium presentation of Planets, Stars, and Galaxies.