Sh2-115 and the wannabe planetary nebula Sh2-116 (Jonathan Piques)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Cygnus (Cyg) · Contains: PK085+04.1 · Sh2-115 · Sh2-116

Image of the day 10/05/2021

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Sh2-115 and the wannabe planetary nebula Sh2-116

Image of the day 10/05/2021

Powered byPixInsight

Sh2-115 and the wannabe planetary nebula Sh2-116

This image showcases two nebulae from the Sharpless catalog. The first, Sharpless 115, is the larger of the two, and dominates the upper right hand of the image. It is a surprisingly faint emission nebula somewhere around 7,500 light years away. Much of the ionization within the nebula is caused by the relatively young ("only" 100 million years old) stars in the open cluster Berkeley 90, also found within the nebula.

You'll also notice a sneaky little marble in the bottom left of the image, and this is Sharpless 116, also cataloged as Abell 71. For many decades, this was thought to be a planetary nebula, but a study published in the 1990s contends that it is actually a HII region. Regardless of its origin, it makes for some additional visual interest in what is already a complex field, i.e. it's cute.

This was a fairly straightforward emission nebula in terms of processing, though it was unique in that there was good representation across all three spectra. The Ha signal dominated, though it was fainter than some other similar nebulae, Oiii was similarly faint but definitely present, and Sii surprisingly strong. In terms of aesthetics, I really wanted to emphasize all three spectra and their contributions to the image: so often emission nebulae are so overwhelmed with Ha that it makes it a little monolithic and challenging to make interesting. For this one, I chose a color palette that reflects the contributions of all three, and processed it to highlight the busy interior structure of the nebula. Hopefully I did it some measure of justice. It had been a while since I've done a Hubble palette-esque image so it took me a minute to get the hang of it again. As always, C&C are welcome.

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	5033606
PixInsight job	QLW7EQ7317UYEEVDN80PP0CHOTEA9L2V
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

RA (center)	20h34m18s.859
RA (top/left)	20h31m30s.110
RA (top/right)	20h36m46s.309
RA (bottom/right)	20h37m09s.727
RA (bottom/left)	20h31m49s.152

Dec (center)	+47°01′59″.99
Dec (top/left)	+46°41′35″.59
Dec (top/right)	+46°37′14″.33
Dec (bottom/right)	+47°22′08″.62
Dec (bottom/left)	+47°26′33″.90

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Image of the day 10/05/2021

Sh2-115 and the wannabe planetary nebula Sh2-116

Image of the day 10/05/2021

Sh2-115 and the wannabe planetary nebula Sh2-116

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Image of the day 10/05/2021

Sh2-115 and the wannabe planetary nebula Sh2-116

Image of the day 10/05/2021

Sh2-115 and the wannabe planetary nebula Sh2-116

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