Because of its position near the winter Milky Way, Auriga has many bright open clusters in its borders, including M36, M37, and M38, popular targets for amateur astronomers.

[12] The Athenian hero then dedicated himself to Athena and, soon after, Zeus raised him into the night sky in honor of his ingenuity and heroic deeds.

Myrtilus's chariot was destroyed in a race intended for suitors to win the heart of Oenomaus's daughter Hippodamia.

[12][14] Auriga is also said to represent Phaethon, son of the sun Helios, who tricked his father into letting him drive his chariot for a day.

[15] Regardless of Auriga's specific representation, it is likely that the constellation was created by the ancient Greeks to commemorate the importance of the chariot in their society.

In the myth of Jason and the Argonauts, as they journeyed home, Medea killed her brother and dismembered him, flinging the parts of his body into the sea, represented by the Milky Way.

The 1488 atlas Hyginus deviated from this typical depiction by showing a four-wheeled cart driven by Auriga, who holds the reins of two oxen, a horse, and a zebra.

Jacob Micyllus depicted Auriga in his Hyginus of 1535 as a charioteer with a two-wheeled cart, powered by two horses and two oxen.

[20] Occasionally, Auriga is seen not as the Charioteer but as Bellerophon, the mortal rider of Pegasus who dared to approach Mount Olympus.

[21] Oxford research finds it likely the group was equally named Agitator in about the 15th century and provides a quotation as late as 1623, from a Gerard de Malynes multi-topic work.

Ancient Peruvian peoples saw Capella, called Colca, as a star intimately connected to the affairs of shepherds.

[27] There is evidence that Capella was significant to the Aztec people, as the Late Classic site Monte Albán has a marker for the star's heliacal rising.

[30] The people of the Marshall Islands featured Auriga in the myth of Dümur, which tells the story of the creation of the sky.

[31] Elsewhere in the central Caroline Islands, Capella was called Jefegen uun (variations include efang alul, evang-el-ul, and iefangel uul), meaning "north of Aldebaran".

[10][47] Its Arabic name comes from the phrase mankib dhu al-'inan, meaning "shoulder of the charioteer" and is a reference to Beta Aurigae's location in the constellation.

Gamma Aurigae, now known under its once co-name Beta Tauri (El Nath, Alnath) is a B7III class star (B-type giant).

[50] Iota Aurigae, also called Hasseleh and Kabdhilinan, is a K3II class star (K-type bright giant)[51] of magnitude 2.69;[10][45] it is about 494 light-years away from Earth.

[45] It is classed as a particularly luminous bright giant but its light is in part "extinguished" (blocked) by intra-galactic dust clouds — astronomers estimate by these it appears 0.6 magnitudes fainter.

[42] The traditional name Kabdhilinan, sometimes shortened to "Alkab", comes from the Arabic phrase al-kab dh'il inan, meaning "shoulder of the rein holder".

[18] The primary has an absolute magnitude of −8.5 and an unusually high luminosity of 200,000 L☉, the reason it appears so bright at such a great distance.

Observations at the Lick Observatory by Edward Emerson Barnard showed it to be disc-shaped, with clear nebulosity in a diameter of 3 arcseconds.

RW Aurigae's spectrum indicates a turbulent stellar atmosphere, and has prominent emission lines of calcium and hydrogen.

Theta Aurigae additionally has a second optical companion, discovered by Otto Wilhelm von Struve in 1852.

[93] HD 40979 is 33.3 parsecs from Earth, a spectral class F8V star of magnitude 6.74 — just past the limit of visibility to the naked eye.

[90] M38 is accompanied by NGC 1907, a smaller and dimmer cluster that lies half a degree south-southwest of M38; it is at a distance of 4,200 light-years.

Though there were only a few visual observers for part of the outburst, the 1994 Aurigids peak, which lasted less than two hours, was later confirmed by Finnish amateur radio astronomer Ilkka Yrjölä.

[114] The Aurigids are normally a placid Class II meteor shower that peaks in the early morning hours of September 1, beginning on August 28 every year.

The annual Aurigids have a radiant located about two degrees north of Theta Aurigae, a third-magnitude star in the center of the constellation.

[119] They may be related to the September Epsilon Perseids, though they are more similar to the Coma Berenicids in that the Delta Aurigids last longer and have a dearth of bright meteors.

[121] The Iota Aurigids are a hypothesized shower occurring in mid-November; its parent body may be the asteroid 2000 NL10, but this connection is highly disputed.