Sh2-132, known as the Lion Nebula, sits in between the Cepheus and Lacerta constellations in the northern sky. This emission nebula is quite faint compared to other objects in the vicinity (it is a busy area!). This nebula is around ten thousand light years from home, and the stars responsible for the ionization of the gases present in this object are very hot and in some cases massive. There are at least two
Wolf-Rayet stars present in Sh2-132. These stars have extremely strong stellar winds that compress the gas in the nebula. Recent studies show that the number of UV photons emitted by the massive stars in the region is seven times higher than the UV photons used to ionize the gas, indicating that the massive stars are responsible for the ionization of the region (
J. Vasquez, C. E. Cappa, S. Pineault, N. U. Duronea, Ionized gas, molecules and dust in Sh2-132, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 405, Issue 3, July 2010, Pages 1976–1986)
Like many others this summer in North America, I was negatively affected by the smoke from wild fires on the West Coast and I had to discard a whole night of Ha data due to this problem. For processing, after trying a couple of variations, I decided to apply tone mapping with the SHO palette and process to taste, trying to highlight the different components within the nebula.
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