Supernova Remnant G082.2+05.3, with the common name W63, was discovered and cataloged by Gart Westerhout with the 25-meter radio dish at The Dwingeloo radio observatory under cloudy Dutch skies (
"Things Unseen: The Westerhout radio sources"). W63 was initially identified as a radio source and later confirmed to be an SNR.
The radio and X-ray images could be viewed at
"SNRcat - Supernova Remnant G082.2+05.3".
The dead star of the mega ancient explosion is long gone and not detectable anymore. The diameter of the still glowing and expanding blue elliptical-shaped SNR is about 150 light-years across. From NASA's articles, the light of W63 arrived on earth 15,000 years ago.
The optical O-III image shows the massive emission area - not only the ellipsoidal shell that is defined by the filamentary emissions, but also large areas of defused O-III regions to the west of and south-east of the SNR. The following images show the O-III channel and the combined synthetic narrowband luminance channels.
One interesting fact is that the O-III emission area of the SNR might not be at the same distance as the surrounding H-II region in the image. It is estimated that the SNR is about 5000 light-years away from the earth. Not able to find any distance data for the close-by LBNs and LDNs - one hint - the nearby Gamma Cygni Nebula (
IC1318) is located at a distance of 4900 light-years. Well, they could be "really" close (
"Sadr").
For astrophotography, the region is packed with features - A number of LBNs, LDNs, and dark cloud structures. There are two pronounced planetary nebulas in the image - NGC 6884 at the top right corner; and PM1-320 discovered by Andrea Preite-Martinez (confirmed 2019).
Appreciation goes to my teammates
Chen Wu,
TBC George, and
Yizhou Zhang. I dragged them all in to help collect the data whenever there was a chance. All of the O-III data and part of the S-II data are collected under moonless skies.
Clear Skies!#TeamNoctuaDSNM 
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