Between Scylla and Charybdis: A Double Cosmic Discovery

Can you title this celestial object? Likely now not — because that is a discovery image. Wide stars forge heavy ingredients in their cores and, after about 1,000,000 years, discontinue their lives in highly efficient supernova explosions. These remnants cool slightly fleet and go, making them complex to detect. To show such faint, beforehand unknown supernova remnants, a genuine neighborhood of newbie astrophotographers searched via sky surveys for imaginable supernova remnant candidates. The final outcome: the basic-ever image of supernova remnant G115.5+9.1 — named Scylla by its discoverers—aesthetic faintly in the constellation of the mythological King of Aethiopia: Cepheus. Emission from hydrogen atoms in the remnant is shown in red, and faint emission from oxygen is shown in hues of blue. Surprisingly, one more discovery lurked to the easier merely: a faint, beforehand unknown planetary nebula candidate. In accordance to mythological custom, it became named Charybdis (Sai 2) — a nod to the faded Greek expression “caught between Scylla and Charybdis” from Homer’s Odyssey.