Object of the Week July 01, 2012 - Wolf-Rayet Shell around WR 134/135

[reiner]

WR 134/135

Wolf-Rayet Shell

Cygnus

RA 20 10 14
DEC +36 10 35 (position of WR 134)

I noticed this object first a few years ago on widefield narrowband images by JP Metsävainio. It is visible in the right part of this mosaic as a brilliant blue OIII crescent (in the Hubble palette version). The bubble is roughly half ways between the Tulip nebula Sharpless 101 and the Crescent nebula.

http://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2008/11/cygnus-trio-long-project.html

With my 22", this WR shell is not visible unfiltered. As most WR bubbles, it responds extremely well to the OIII filter. With filter, it appears as a ghostly crescent that is roughly 15' long and opened towards E. The appearance is similar to that of Sharpless 308, which is, however, considerably larger. This is the summer object I often show to people who would like to see something more exotic than just the Veil or the Ring Nebula :-)

A highly enhanced DSS image of the area. WR 134 is the middle star in the central group of three stars.

253

While WR 134 is roughly in the center of the bubble, Steve Gottlieb digged out a paper (http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2009AstL...35..121S), where WR 134 being the source of the shell was questioned and instead WR 135 was suggested to be the true central star.

Very recently, Don Goldman imaged the nebula. His APOD image is here http://www.astrodonimaging.com/gallery/display.cfm?imgID=253 . To my knowledge, this is the only image dedicated to this object.

"GIVE IT A GO AND LET US KNOW"

GOOD LUCK AND GREAT VIEWING!

[Marko]

Again another fantastic challenge object to take on at GSSP.

Steve Gottlieb showed me this at a 3000 foot site south of Hosteler CA on Aug 19, 2009 (Dang, has it been THAT long?)
This would be a wonderful thing to track down again this summer and by the way Does this Forum ROCK or what? (I say 'YES it Does)

This was a shared view in Steves 18" scope and it showed without a doubt to be present and as follows per my notes:
(A rather non-detailed observation by myself but I will do better this summer to make up for it)

15' wolf-rayent half-shell in Cyg fairly near B147
C shape open to the right. Steve found and explained this one well in posted TAC or for this night.

Thanks,
Marko

[Steve Gottlieb]

WR 134/135

...This is the summer object I often show to people who would like to see something more exotic than just the Veil or the Ring Nebula :-)

Absolutely! The WR 134/135 Nebula is also high on my list of obscure summer objects to show to experienced observers --- I know it's very likely they haven't even heard of this Wolf-Rayet shell. Here are my notes from two summers back at the Golden State Star Party in northern California:

18" (7/13/10): I showed off this very obscure Wolf-Rayet nebula to several observers at GSSP including Tom Clark and Steve Coe. Once again I was amazed at the view at 73x using an OIII filter, since without a filter it is only barely visible and would probably be passed right over. Inserting the filter, a relatively bright, thick curving lane of nebulosity extended over 15'x4' in the rich star field, oriented SSW to NNE and opening towards the east. The glow broadens somewhat at the north end and varies in surface brightness and thickness along the length. The nebula is located ~10' W of a string consisting of two wide pairs of stars including mag 8 HD 191765 = WR 134.

I wonder how small a scope will show this object?

[gdjsky01]

When Paul Alsing and Debbie Searle said they were heading over to visit with Jimi Lowrey and Steve Gottlieb I didn't a thing about it. After all, that meant Paul's 25 f/5 mine.... all mine... ;) It was just sitting there waiting for a dancing partner. I was not aware they would get a view of this object and I'd be left a brides maid. Paul and Debbie came back talking about it as did Alan and about everyone but I guess the porta-john servicing guy. :(

Hating to be left out of a good thing, I made sure to ask Jimi about this object the next afternoon.

"Hey I am going over to Steve and see if he'll show me this tonight...", I said
"What?! Hell no... no do overs! We don't back up! You wanna see this? Find it! It's on DeepskyForum. Log your butt in and read...", said Jimi
"Umm... well maybe I'll just go over to Steve and ask for a finder chart..."
"Finder chart??? Hell no!! We burnt the m..... f..... You get on DSF and get the coordinates! Then find the @%@$ thing for yourself!"


You'll just have to imagine that Floridian drawl and the big smile plastered on his face.... I slipped away and found my iPad.... logged on to the DSF... :P

Later that night with Charlie Wicks plotting the field of view on his filtered iPad, and with the coordinates entered into the Argo on Paul's 25 f/5 we went to town... Well not really... That line of 4 stars makes finding this object about the doddle. Those 4 stars in a jagged line are just so easy to pick out. Indeed once I ID'ed the FOV in the Telrad field on the 25, pointing Deb's 20 f/5 at the same place was no issue whatsoever, I just push to'd to the field using the telrad and a tiny spiral search for those 4 stars in the jagged line found it PDQ.

That major crecent area is easy! And for the time of night and date (20-Jul about 23:00PDT), placing the crescent outside the FOV seemed to bring in a tad of fainter nebulousity. I believe the 25 f/5 was using a 13mm Ethos, and the 20 inch f/5 a 17mm Nagler. Both show the main bright crescent area easily when filtered. Bad on me I did not trying Eric Shrader's 14.5. Conditions Friday night were, IIRC not super either. Hit and miss hazy with fair seeing. Not bad mind you. Just not as good as GSSP can be. I'd GUESS maybe a 6 - 6.5LM. Certain parts of the sky were better than others. (Don't quote me on the night... GSSP went so fast and like Paul, I wrote nothing down.)

Later on Jimi came by and to tell me, "See! You don't need nobody! Just go look for yourself!" :P

Well... I guess you just had to have been there... :D ;)

[Howard B]

I had a look at WR 134/135 Saturday night at GSSP too and found the fat crescent shape area of nebulosity to be obvious enough to be really interesting. Of hand I don't remember if it looked best with the OIII or NPB filter but it was pretty nice in both.

[hajuem]

Servus Reiner

Howdy again this great forum! A beautiful image of this object! Is there to do with 16 inches with OIII or UHC?

Lg von Hajü

[gdjsky01]

Servus Reiner

Howdy again this great forum! A beautiful image of this object! Is there to do with 16 inches with OIII or UHC?

Lg von Hajü


Howdy!
I am told that someone has seen the brightest part of this object with a 12 inch (30cm). So it should be viewable in a 16 inch (40cm) with an OIII.

[reiner]

Hi Hajü,

the summer I observed this one for the first time, I talked to Matthias Kronberger on Deep Sky Meeting (the first one in 2009). As you can imagine, he already had observed this one before (if it comes to faint HII regions, Matthias has bagged them all :-) ). This was at the time when he only had his 10". So this should be a lower limit, using filters, of course.