Between Two Ferns – Supernova Remnant G007.5-1.7

Well, it’s not exactly two ferns—it’s between NGC 6995 and Messier 20 (the Trifid Nebula). Nevertheless, this supernova remnant, SNR G007.5-1.7, appears in all kinds of shots of Messier 8 and Messier 20 and the surrounding region, but I don’t recall ever seeing it isolated. Unfortunately, I can’t get the full extent of it in a single frame using the Takahashi TOA130 telescope. But here I attempted to get the better part of it without any other significant object showing up in the frame.The field of view is roughly what is expressed in the yellow box below (a screen cap of a shot from the Takahashi FSQ106 telescope). I wish I could have gotten the material in the red ellipse, but maybe I can add a frame next year to get that part:

I haven’t found a ton of information about this SNR, but Chandra did gather some data. Based on this data, it appears to be about 6,523 light years away. It also appears that the shell is about 50,000 years old, while the pulsar is approximately 23,000 years old. Using Gary Imm’s formula for calculating object size [4.85e-6 X width(px) X “/px X distance(ly)], I get a size of about 191 light years for the elements visible in this image.

The little blue spot bottom-center of the frame is not part of the remnant. It’s a reflection nebula catalogued as vdB 115 and IC 4684:

vdB 115 is somewhat closer than the supernova remnant at a distance of approximately 5,400 light years.