About 120 centuries ago an inconspicuous star in what is now the constellation of Vela brightened by about 100 million times to rival the Moon as the brightest object in the night sky. This photograph shows a portion of the north-western quadrant of an expanding nebulous shell, which now surrounds the site of the explosion.

Near the centre of the nebula is the Vela pulsar (PSR J0835-4510), a rapidly-spinning neutron star only a few kilometres in diameter, the remnant of the star that exploded. This tiny, massive object spins about 11 times a second and until recently was among the faintest stars ever studied at optical wavelengths, a far cry from its brief glory as one of the brightest stars ever seen. This picture was derived from a red-light plate taken in 1976 using the UK Schmidt Telescope.