Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Orion (Ori)  ·  Contains:  LBN 862  ·  LBN 863  ·  LBN 864  ·  LDN 1587  ·  Sh2-261
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Sh2-261 - Lower's Nebula, Paul Ricker
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Sh2-261 - Lower's Nebula

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
Sh2-261 - Lower's Nebula, Paul Ricker
Powered byPixInsight

Sh2-261 - Lower's Nebula

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Description

Lower's Nebula (Sh2-261) is a vaguely fish-shaped HII region in Orion that appears to have been discovered by a father and son team, Harold and Charles Lower, in 1939 using an 8-inch Schmidt camera they built. An O-class star, HD 41997, near the center of the nebula appears to be ionizing it and illuminates a reflection nebula visible there in blue. Supposely this is a "runaway star" moving fast enough with respect to the surrounding interstellar medium to produce a visible shock wave, though Brown and Bomans (2005) list it as "ambiguous." I may try to reprocess to improve the contrast in the central region.

Image produced from exposures taken at the Casitas de Gila guest houses in SW New Mexico. Getting to the end of my stack of observations, will have to go back for more!

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Sh2-261 - Lower's Nebula, Paul Ricker