See our ApJ paper on this comparison. The HST image was made by subtracting the I-band continuum F814W image from F658N, leaving H-alpha+[N II]6583 line emission. The Chandra image is a 26 ksec exposure from the archive (P.I. Strickland), obtained with the ACIS instrument and smoothed to 0."8 arcsec FWHM. Marked are striking correlations between filamentary networks in the two wavebands. The two networks appear to coincide spatially within the +/-0."4-arcsec registration uncertainty that we have attained so far. The nucleus is optically obscured but prominent in the Chandra image (marked as +).

The deeper 90-ksec exposure proposed for Chandra cycle 13, when combined with the image above should reveal X-rays from all 4 "towers" of optically emitting filaments at a resolution of about 0."7 FWHM, and would also have sufficient counts to provide X-ray spectra at several points across the superbubble, not just spatially integrated across the bubble. The figure below shows the expected resolution of this longer exposure, and the spectra that would be extracted over a few regions depending on whether the gas is in ionization equilibrium, or is shocked.


I am also preparing a multi-configuration EVLA program to map the larger radio bubbles in multiple frequencies to establish the topology of the magnetic field. We are working on MHD and gas-dynamical 3D simulations of the flow.