N 206 Super Bubble, CDK24, RH305

Super Bubble, N 206 Massive stars severely influence their environment by their strong ionizing radiation and by the momentum and kinetic energy output provided by their stellar winds and supernovae. Quantitative analyses of massive stars are used to understand how their feedback creates and shapes large scale structures of the interstellar medium. The giant Hydrogen II region N 206 is in the Large Magellanic Cloud that is 170,ooo light years distant and is a satellite galaxy gravitationaly bound to the Milky Way. It is located in the deep southern sky at 70 degrees below the equator. It  contains an  association of hot massive blue stars known as OB stars and super nova remnants that powers a superbubble filled with hot X-ray emitting gas. The circular region to the upper left is a super nova remnant, the bright region in the upper left is NGC 2018, a young star cluster, and in the very center of the image is the Xray super bubble. Like other giant stars, OB stars are short lived, and do not move far from where they were formed. During their lifetime, they emit huge amounts of ultraviolet radiation. This radiation ionizes the surrounding interstellar gas of the nebula, forming an H II region where new stars are being formed. This image is made using narrowband 3nm filters that capture emissions from Hydrogen and Oxygen gases.  These emissions are created because of ultraviolet light from these massive OB stars  excite the Hydrogen and Oxygen gases which then re radiate light at their characteristic wavelengths. The Red color comes from Hydrogen emission at 656.5nm and the Blue from Oxygen emission at 500.7nm While technically a false color image as only light from these very narrow filters are used in the image, the colors  are close to the actual colors . The image was taken with a 24″ Planewave telescope located in Rio Hurtado, Chile and a RH305 in Australia.