RCW104

Let me introduce RCW 104, captured from Chile (SADR Observatory) in collaboration with Patrick Delay, Loïck Viger, and Emmanuel VALIN.
The processing was quite challenging, particularly to bring out the OIII signal.
RCW 104 is a unique ring nebula surrounding a Wolf-Rayet star (WR 75). It is located 3,175 light-years from Earth and is estimated to be around 870 million years old.
There are very few images of this beautiful, faint target in the southern constellation of Norma. This nebula, with its complex filamentary structure, was formed by the Wolf-Rayet star WR 75.
These types of stars possess such immense energy that they usually have very short lifespans—only a few million years. They are extremely massive, evolve quickly, and emit powerful stellar winds, which create intricate emission nebulae in the surrounding gas.
Several unusual kinematic phenomena have been discovered. A dominant velocity component from the diffuse gas appears above the filamentary edge. There is some splitting of this component near the WR star. However, no simple radially expanding shell has been identified.
The high-velocity gas knots forming above the filamentary edge are particularly intriguing. They may represent localized outflows around globules.