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Post Info TOPIC: NGC 2346
Blobrana


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NGC 2346: A Cosmic Butterfly's Delicate Wings

H2-10brot.png

NOAO scientists, using the Gemini Observatory 8-meter telescope in Chile, have obtained the highest resolution image ever obtained for the planetary nebula NGC 2346. Shaped like a butterfly, or an hourglass, but known scientifically as a bipolar planetary nebula, this object is at a distance of 2,300 light-years from our Sun in the constellation Monoceros.
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Title: High resolution imaging of NGC 2346 with GSAOI/GeMS: disentangling the planetary nebula molecular structure to understand its origin and evolution
Author: Arturo Manchado, Letizia Stanghellini, Eva Villaver, Guillermo Garcia-Segura, Richard A. Shaw, D. A. Garcia-Hernandez

We present high spatial resolution (approx 60--90 milliarcseconds) images of the molecular hydrogen emission in the Planetary Nebula (PN) NGC 2346. The data were acquired during the System Verification of the Gemini Multi-Conjugate Adaptive Optics System + Gemini South Adaptive Optics Imager. At the distance of NGC 2346, 700 pc, the physical resolution corresponds to approx 56 AU, which is slightly higher than that an [N II] image of NGC 2346 obtained with HST/WFPC2. With this unprecedented resolution we were able to study in detail the structure of the H2 gas within the nebula for the first time. We found it to be composed of knots and filaments, which at lower resolution had appeared to be a uniform torus of material. We explain how the formation of the clumps and filaments in this PN is consistent with a mechanism in which a central hot bubble of nebular gas surrounding the central star has been depressurised, and the thermal pressure of the photoionised region drives the fragmentation of the swept-up shell.

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Blobrana


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NGC 2346 (also Butterfly Nebula, PK 215 +3.1 and HD 293373) is a magnitude +11.6 planetary nebula located 2,000 light years away in the constellation Monoceros.
A the center of the nebula is the binary star system HD 293373; The two stars orbit each other every 16 days. The nebula has a diameter of 0.34 years lights.

The nebula was discovered by German-British astronomer William Herschel using a 47.5 cm (18.7 inch) f/13 speculum reflector at 19 New King Street, Bath, on the 5th March 1780.

Right Ascension  07h 09m 22.5s, Declination -00° 48' 22"

The binary star, which has a period of about 16 days, is also variable, probably due to dust in orbit around it. 
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