* Astronomy

Title: Discovery of an Apparent High Latitude Galactic Supernova Remnant
Author: Robert Fesen, Jack Neustadt, Christine Black, Ari Koeppel

Deep Halpha images of a faint emission complex 4.0 x 5.5 degrees in angular extent and located far off the Galactic plane at l = 70.0 degrees, b=-21.5 degrees reveal numerous thin filaments suggestive of a supernova remnant's shock emission. Low dispersion optical spectra covering the wavelength range 4500 - 7500 A show only Balmer line emissions for one filament while three others show a Balmer dominated spectrum along with weak [N I] 5198, 5200 A, [O I] 6300, 6364 A, [N II] 6583 A, [S II] 6716, 6731 A and in one case [O III] 5007 A line emission. Many of the brighter Halpha filaments are visible in near UV GALEX images presumably due to C III] 1909 A line emission. ROSAT All Sky Survey images of this region show a faint crescent shaped X-ray emission nebula coincident with the portion of the Halpha nebulosity closest to the Galactic plane. The presence of long, thin Balmer dominated emission filaments with associated UV emission and coincident X-ray emission suggests this nebula is a high latitude Galactic supernova remnant despite a lack of known associated nonthermal radio emission. Relative line intensities of the optical lines in some filaments differ from commonly observed [S II]/Halpha > 0.4 radiative shocked filaments and typical Balmer filaments in supernova remnants. We discuss possible causes for the unusual optical SNR spectra.

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