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Light Echo & Honeycomb

This was a request by Brandon Lima, who found this tidbit in the archive (click his name to see his work on the matter). Located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, within this WFPC2 shaped chunk of space are two things of note. At the lower right and partially off the frame is the aptly named Honeycomb Nebula. Above that are two white arcs one might mistake for just another piece of cloud, but they are in fact light echos emanating from the nearby sn1987a. If you would like to see the light echo in action, click here.

 

Note: I increased the saturation of the colors. Greenish H-alpha is due to filter selection.

 

HST Proposal 9111 - The UV Light Echo of Shock Breakout During SN 1987A

 

Red: hst_09111_06_wfpc2_f814w_wf_sci

Green: hst_09111_06_wfpc2_f675w_wf_sci

Blue: hst_09111_06_wfpc2_f555w_wf_sci

 

North is NOT up. It is 17.9° clockwise from up.

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Uploaded on January 17, 2016