NASA PAIR STUDENT

  SCSU Student Guy Mentor

 Wins PAIR Award 

 

 

 

Guy Mentor won a “Meritorious Presentation” award at the NASA PAIR Summit in Leesburg, VA, for his poster “A Search for Extragalactic HII Regions and Supernova Remnants.”  His award was part of the competition among 20 posters presented by students from 10 PAIR schools (2 posters per school).  The awards included a first and second place poster and six meritorious posters.

 
 

A Search for Extragalactic HII Regions and Supernova Remnants 

We present the results of a search for supernova remnants (SNRs) in the galaxy NGC 6946. Longslit optical spectra were taken at the Kitt Peak 4-meter telescope and provided to this group for examination.The spectra were taken of a number of locations in the galaxy where SNRs were suspected based on unpublished radio data. The purpose of this study was to optically confirm the existence of these suspected SNRs. The two-dimensional spectra were examined and the noise sources removed using the Image Reduction Analysis Facility (IRAF). The two-dimensional spectra were reduced to one-dimension, and the strength of the emission lines was measured using IRAF. The Halpha and the sulfur lines at 671.7 and 673.1 nanometers were recorded and the ratio of SII/Halpha was determined. If the ratio exceeded 0.40, the source was considered an SNR; otherwise, it was assumed to be an HII region. Of the 24 objects examined, three were determined to be SNRs. Future work includes examination of additional positions in the galaxy and comparison of the optical results with the radio results. This work has been supported by grants to SCSU from NASA PAIR, NCC 5-454 and NASA MU-SPIN NCC 5-534.

 

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