Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Scutum (Sct)  ·  Contains:  NGC 6664  ·  The star ε Sct
Supernova Remnant G25.1-2.3: The Ancile SNR in Scutum, Bray Falls
Supernova Remnant G25.1-2.3: The Ancile SNR in Scutum, Bray Falls

Supernova Remnant G25.1-2.3: The Ancile SNR in Scutum

Supernova Remnant G25.1-2.3: The Ancile SNR in Scutum, Bray Falls
Supernova Remnant G25.1-2.3: The Ancile SNR in Scutum, Bray Falls

Supernova Remnant G25.1-2.3: The Ancile SNR in Scutum

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Description

The Ancile SNR

In ancient Rome, the Ancilia were twelve sacred shields kept in the Temple of Mars. According to legend, one divine shield fell from heaven during the reign of Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome. He ordered eleven copies made to confuse thieves, since the original shield was regarded as one of the pignora imperii (or pledges of rule), these were sacred guarantors that perpetuated Rome as a sovereign entity. 

Ancilia_II.png

SNR G25.1-2.3 is a radio supernova remnant in the constellation Scutum. 'Scutum' is Latin for the shield, and so our team decided to give the SNR the nickname 'Ancile', for the sacred shield which fell from heaven. Interestingly enough this SNR does have a shape just like the depicted Ancilia! 

The History of G25.1-2.3

SNR G25.1-2.3 was discovered in 2011 and first published in a paper by Gao et al in 2011. Since then, only one other paper has been published on the remnant in 2020. This remnant was not known to have any optical emission, until our team surveyed the region with deep Oiii images, and showed an extremely faint but real optical structure:
g25.jpg
The first Oiii continuum image of the region inverted

The Challenge with G25.1

When an optical emission is unknown, it is usually for a very good reason. This SNR sits squarely in one of the most star-dense regions of the milky way, and it also has extremely low surface brightness:

staight rgb.jpg
The raw RGB data 

When these two factors are combined it is easy to see how this optical emission would be unknown. The only way that we were going to reveal it was through brute-force exposure time from dark skies. 

The Collaboration

Upon realizing this would be a great collaborative target, it was put to our observatory discord survey to capture together at once. Many astrophotographers at our observatory share very similar setups, and so by combining our instruments, we can create one virtual telescope with incredible focal speed. Also, with every telescope under the same bortle 1 sky, it was effortless to normalize for sky conditions and data quality between each setup.

Here is a shot during the capturing phase of the collaboration at our observatory, with multiple scopes on the same target: 

1.jpg

The Processing

The editing of this image can best be described as 'brutal'. Even with hundreds of hours of exposure from extremely dark skies, this object pushed the limits of what our telescopes could do. As such, it required a lot of tricky editing to try to pull out the details. For example, AI star removal did not work on this photo, because the AI would just delete all of the SNR filaments. This means each star had to manually be removed around each filament. The resulting image after continuum removal was also full of holes, and extreme noise. Here is what our raw Oiii continuum image looked like: 

raw o3.jpg

With all of this intense noise, we are pushing the line for what is 'realistic' in processing. The goal of this editing was to produce an aesthetically pleasing image, and not to be super scientifically accurate. That being said we have tried our best to remain faithful to the raw data.

A Surprise Guest

sf-o3.jpg
Whenever you collect 80+hrs of Oiii exposure anywhere in the sky, there is a fair shot at showing some ultra-low surface brightness planetary nebulae. Our team got lucky here and bumped into this one right beside the SNR. Pascal at PN.net helped us identify a conspicuous blue star which is likely the white dwarf responsible. Here is is in the SDSS survey at coordinates 18:46:54.06 -08:01:30.10: 

Screen Shot 2024-07-28 at 11.04.24 PM.png
This PN was previously unknown, and so now it is registered under a new catalog as SFO1, for Starfront Observatory! 

We hope you all enjoy the image!

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Supernova Remnant G25.1-2.3: The Ancile SNR in Scutum, Bray Falls