W3(OH)

W3(OH) is a very bright, compact HII region within the W3 complex. This knot is coincident with the OH masers and has an optically thick spectrum below 15 GHz. This object is a shell that is becoming optically thin between 15 and 23 GHz. At a distance of 3 kpc, the radius of the shell is about 0,007 pc (1400 AU); if it is freely expanding at 10 km/s, then the expansion phase must be only about 800 years old. The outer diameter of the shell is 1.4 arcsec.

Legacy Astronomical Images

NRAO/AUI/NSF does not hold full copyright for this image. Contact the archivist for details.

Legacy Astronomical Image

W3

J.W. Dreher, W.J. Welch

Very Large Array (VLA)

1979-02-09

continuum

U

2.0 cm

15 GHz

RA 2:27:3.900, Dec: 61:52:25.000 (J2000)

0.001111 x 0.001111 degrees

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Galactic Sources Series

Star Forming Regions Unit