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The Lion Nebula (Sh2-132) and a couple of surprise planetary nebulae, Luca Marinelli
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The Lion Nebula (Sh2-132) and a couple of surprise planetary nebulae

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The Lion Nebula (Sh2-132) and a couple of surprise planetary nebulae, Luca Marinelli
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The Lion Nebula (Sh2-132) and a couple of surprise planetary nebulae

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Description

Sharpless 132 (Sh2-132) goes by the common name of the Lion Nebula and it straddles the boundary of the constellations Cepheus and Lacerta. It is primarily an emission nebula with several embedded small dark nebulae and is estimated to be at a distance of roughly 10,000 light years from Earth. The core of Sh2-132 includes pillar-like structures, Bok globules and the characteristic oxygen-rich stripe through the head of the Lion. The star HD211853 in the Astrobin plate-solved image of this core region (right next to the Sh2-132 label) is  a Wolf-Rayet star with catalog number WR-153ab. Wolf-Rayet stars are extremely hot stars in late stages of stellar evolution that are often associated with molecular emissions as is the case in the more famous Crescent Nebula and WR-134 in Cygnus. 

In the large field of view presented here there are also three small but bright planetary nebulae that are well resolved. In the annotated image (revision G) they are labeled PK102-02.1 (Abell 79) on the lower left of the image, PN G101.5-00.6 on the right of the image, and Ra 50 (PN G102.0+00.1) just to the right of Sh2-132. 

Abell 79 is a planetary nebula in Lacerta comprising an irregular and broadened oval-shaped ring from which faint oppositely-directed lobes emerge that have nearly vanished into the interstellar medium. The characteristic shape is responsible for its name of the 6 nebula. It's a much smaller version of the Ring Nebula (M57) with spiral arm emission structures. The ring, assumed to be circular, is inclined 49 degrees to the line-of-sight with its northern side approaching us relative to its center, and it is expanding at about 13 km/sec. It is estimated to be at a distance of 11,360 light years and spans roughly 1 arc-min in diameter. It was discovered in 1947 by Rudolph Minkowski but only classified as a planetary nebula by George Abell in his1955 catalog. A close-up is presented in revision D.

PN G101.5-00.6 is an oxygen-rich young planetary nebula included in the IPHAS catalog of new extended planetary nebulae. It has a bipolar shape with a second fainter arch extending South of the main lobe. A close-up is presented in revision E.

Raffaelli 50 (Ra 50, PN G102.0+00.1) is a tiny young planetary nebula (0.3 x 0.4 arc-min) discovered by the amateur astronomer Thierry Raffaelli and confirmed spectroscopically in 2017 by Pascal Le Du. The signal is primarily in Ha. A close-up is presented in revision H.

Processing notes and acknowledgements:
The starting point for the color palette was a dynamic SHO combination as described here:
https://thecoldestnights.com/2020/06/pixinsight-dynamic-narrowband-combinations-with-pixelmath/
Narrowband stars were
replaced with RGB stars processed to roughly match the size of their narrowband equivalents.


Sources:
Abell 79:
https://skyandtelescope.org/online-gallery/abell-79/

https://www.imagingdeepspace.com/abell-79.html
SIMBAD page:
http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/sim-basic?ident=PK%20102-2.1

PN G101.5-00.6:
IPHAS catalog: http://simbad.cds.unistra.fr/simbad/sim-ref?bibcode=2014MNRAS.443.3388S
SIMBAD page:
http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/sim-id?Ident=%405135195&Name=PN%20G101.5-00.6&submit=submit

Ra 50:

http://planetarynebulae.net/EN/page_np.php?id=280
https://skyhuntblog.wordpress.com/pne-discovered-by-amateurs-outside-the-dsh/

Comments

Revisions

  • Final
    The Lion Nebula (Sh2-132) and a couple of surprise planetary nebulae, Luca Marinelli
    Original
  • The Lion Nebula (Sh2-132) and a couple of surprise planetary nebulae, Luca Marinelli
    C
  • The Lion Nebula (Sh2-132) and a couple of surprise planetary nebulae, Luca Marinelli
    D
  • The Lion Nebula (Sh2-132) and a couple of surprise planetary nebulae, Luca Marinelli
    E
  • The Lion Nebula (Sh2-132) and a couple of surprise planetary nebulae, Luca Marinelli
    G
  • The Lion Nebula (Sh2-132) and a couple of surprise planetary nebulae, Luca Marinelli
    H

C

Title: Full, minimally cropped field of view

Uploaded: ...

D

Title: Abell 79 (PK102-02.1)

Description: Image upsampled 2x in Adobe Photoshop

Uploaded: ...

E

Title: PN G101.5-00.6

Description: Image upsampled 2x in Adobe Photoshop

Uploaded: ...

G

Title: Sh2-132: Annotated full field of view

Uploaded: ...

H

Title: Raffaelli 50 (Ra 50, PN G102.0+00.1)

Description: Image upsampled 2x in Adobe Photoshop

Uploaded: ...

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The Lion Nebula (Sh2-132) and a couple of surprise planetary nebulae, Luca Marinelli