RCW 103—The SNR with a Puzzling Neutron Star

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Russ.Carpenter
Posts: 159
Joined: Thu Jul 17, 2014 8:20 pm
Location: Green Valley, Arizona

RCW 103—The SNR with a Puzzling Neutron Star

Post by Russ.Carpenter »

This image and text were uploaded to Astrobin this afternoon. Processed with version 1.8 on my iMac, which is working like a champ.
https://www.astrobin.com/7f1gm6/

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RCW 103—The SNR with a Puzzling Neutron Star

Here is a visually appealing, but very rarely imaged, supernova remnant. This is its first appearance in Astrobin.

RCW 103’s neutron star is not behaving according to the rules. It’s rotating once every 6.7 hours, which is much slower than a neutron star 2,000 years old should be rotating.

This puzzle has attracted a lot of attention. Since 1995, RCW 103 has been the subject of 43 scholarly articles. According the NASA, the most plausible explanation is that RCW 103 may have a partner star that’s too small to be detected. The interaction of the magnetic fields of both stars may be slowing RCW 103’s rotation.

This is an HOO image.

Tech Notes for ASA 500/3.6:
ASA Newtonian, 500 mm aperture, 1900mm focal length, F3.6
FLI Proline 16803, 9 mm pixel, 4096 X 4096
ASA DDM85 equatorial mount
Processing with PixInsight, StarTools, and Affinity Photo
Attachments
RCW103 Small.jpg
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