Distance to the Cygnus Loop from Hubble Space TelescopeImaging of the Primary ShockFront*

William P. Blair; Ravi Sankrit; John C. Raymond; Knox S. Long

doi:10.1086/300994

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Distance to the Cygnus Loop from Hubble Space Telescope Imaging of the Primary Shock Front^*

William P. Blair¹, Ravi Sankrit¹, John C. Raymond², and Knox S. Long³

© 1999. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. Printed in U.S.A.
The Astronomical Journal, Volume 118, Number 2 Citation William P. Blair et al 1999 AJ 118 942 DOI 10.1086/300994

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Author affiliations

¹ Department of Physics and Astronomy, 3400 North Charles Street, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218

² Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138

³ Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218

Dates

Received 1999 April 27
Accepted 1999 May 10

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Abstract

We present a Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 narrowband Hα image of a region on the northeastern limb of the Cygnus Loop supernova remnant. This location provides a detailed example of where the primary blast wave first encounters the surrounding interstellar medium. The filament structure is seen in exquisite detail in this image, which was obtained primarily as an EARLY ACQuisition image for a follow-up spectroscopic program. We compare the HST image with a digitized version of the POSS-I red plate to measure the proper motion of this filament. By combining this value for the proper motion with previous measurements of the shock velocity at this position we find that the distance to the Cygnus Loop is 440_-100⁺¹³⁰ pc, considerably smaller than the canonical value of 770 pc. We briefly discuss the ramifications of this new distance estimate for our understanding of this prototypical supernova remnant.

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Footnotes

*
Based on observations with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, obtained at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-26555.

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Distance to the Cygnus Loop from Hubble Space Telescope Imaging of the Primary Shock Front*