Honeycomb Nebula

The serendipitous SNR!

Image credit ESO

RA: 05h 35m 45s Dec: -69° 18′ 08″

Diameter: 1.5′ x 1.0′

Local OB Associations: –

NGC Objects: –

Hubble’s beautiful snapshot of the Honeycomb Nebula, showing the intriguing structure of stacked “bubbles” that gave rise to its name. Credit ESA/Hubble & NASA

The Honeycomb Nebula was discovered serendipitously by astronomers in 1990 when they were using ESO’s New Technology Telescope to image the nearby SN1987A, a few arcminutes northwest. The nebula’s odd shape baffled astronomers until 2010 when a group of astronomers at the University of Manchester studied the nebula and came to the conclusion that its unique appearance is likely due to the combined effect of two supernovae – a more recent explosion has pierced the expanding shell created by the older explosion. Its curious appearance is suspected to be due to a chance line of sight angle, and it is certainly fitting for an object lying within this vast complex where it seems everything is bigger, brighter, more extreme, or as Alice said in Wonderland, “curiouser and curiouser!”

Seeing the debris from an exploding star is always a treat, and this exotic pair especially so. But alas, at 128x with the OIII filter, and after a prolonged and careful search all I managed to pick up were a couple of exceedingly faint, and exceedingly delicate, translucent thread-like filaments. I am sure those with large Dobs who manage to observe SN1987A’s SNR remnant, right next door so to speak, will be able to see some interesting curlicues.