Part of Supernova Remnant RCW114

[gregbradley]

I first noticed this object when I did a widefield Milky Way Ha image using a FLI Proline 16803 and a Nikkor 50mm F1.8G lens and 5nm Ha filter, its the heart shaped wispy nebula sticking out from the left lower side of the Milky Way here:

http://www.pbase.com/gregbradley/image/158657074/large MW Ha Nikon 50mm F4

So I did a new show of it recently as the Nikkor image cut off the Gum nebula next to Rho Ophiuchi so I wanted to reframe it correctly:

http://www.pbase.com/gregbradley/image/165846972/large Pentax 75mm F4.5

And a closer up view with a longer lens here:

http://www.pbase.com/gregbradley/image/165901138/large Pentax 165mm F4

Seeing Andy's excellent mosaic I thought it would be an ideal target for the Honders which excels at widefield imaging.

I took Ha and colour last night. It took quite a while to frame this as there are really no reference points. For those interested the best reference point is NGC6388 which is a bit off to the side of this image.
This image is at RA 17.26.50 Dec -48.26.10 One of the central stars is HIP80579 so you can search in Sky X on that star and it will pretty much centre this scene. That took quite a while to work out!

I also took some test shots in O111 and S11. There was no O111 at all in this scene but there was plenty of S11. Not sure how that helps as an Ha S11 combo would look a bit yuck.

This is 13 x 10minutes x 2x2 5nm Ha. I'll add colour later as I need to reshoot some that did not work out, high cloud or something interrupted.

Its fun to work on what is really a new area for astronomy. This area simply has not been imaged virtually at all. That paper from Wollongong Uni seemed the only real reference to it apart from its original inclusion in the RCW catalogue.

The image is here:

http://www.pbase.com/image/165907060/large


Greg.

[strongmanmike]

Another great shot Greg....it is now officially on my (growing) FSQ target list :thumbsup:
Mike

[gregbradley]

It would be perfect for the FSQ. Do you have the reducer? That would make it even easier and you might be able to get it all in 2 or 4 panels at 330mm focal length.

Greg.

[RickS]

Very nice, Greg! A Ha/Sii bi-colour is quite feasible so long as you don't map both filters to red :lol:

[strongmanmike]

Ah yes the Tak reducer....only the 645 would be any good for the big 16803 Proline but it is worth almost half the price of the damn scope! :eyepop:...so I put it on the back burner for now...at least until I exhaust all the fields suited to 4deg X 4deg :)

Mike

[Placidus]

An excellent and valuable piece of work, both detective and technical.

I'd love to see a bicolour Ha-SII.

It's really interesting to learn that older SNR's might be richer in SII emission than OIII emission.

Best,
M

[atalas]

Wow.....that's very cool Greg :thumbsup:

[gregbradley]

No, the standard reducer works fine on the FSQ and PL16803, I used it occasionally. I probably still have the adapter for it.

http://www.pbase.com/gregbradley/image/124811617/large

http://www.pbase.com/image/124761790/large

Greg.

[gregbradley]

I can certainly capture some S11 and give it a go. Not sure what formula you would use to combine Ha and S11.



Thanks very much Louie. its good to be imaging a new target.

Greg.

[Atmos]

It almost looks a bit like the Veil Nebula but it is a fascinating image Greg.

There is no way a bi colour Ha/SII could be considered in any way true colour without it being a red mess but you could do a kinda standard HaSIISII (like with the HOO).

[AWalker]

Hi Greg, I'm the author of that Wollongong Uni paper, I'm amazed to see someone referencing it:lol:!

This was part of my PhD, I was lucky to get to spend some time using
a) A camera setup Mike Bessell arranged on the old 16" telescope at Siding Spring (from memory a large lens installed on the telescope mount) I took a heap of images for his project (a large area survey) also of the Gum Nebula and a few other things such as RCW114
b) UKST I was there for 5 or 6 months helping out with the H-alpha survey in the late 90s which was a heap of fun (looking for optical emission from suprnova remnants mainly). This paper was about from this time. RCW 114 on a survey film from the UKST is an incredible sight! A lot of the films and plates being made then were digitized with super cosmos (and maybe online somewhere?) but to be honest, the original leaved the digitised version well behind for quality and detail.

I think there may have been a few optical references in my paper, but there definitely have been a few in radio, Google Scholar will find the latest. Nothing I did was that ground breaking, but it's a real pleasure to see people still looking at these!

PS another object I looked at (I discovered the optical structure) was the Coalsack loop. This is another large object which also appears in radio emission. I made a few rough images with Mike's setup back in the day, but then recently I saw the images in this page, wow!!!

https://www.astrobin.com/94150/

Andrew

[gregbradley]

I'll keep that in mind once I get some S11 data. Clouded out tonight.



Wow, great to read your post Andrew. And thank you for your paper on this object.

I was unaware of the Coal Sack loop so I will definitely check that out also.
That was a good discovery.

Greg.