WISE morphological study of Wolf-Rayet nebulae

Understand

We present a morphological study of nebulae around Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars using archival narrow-band optical and Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) infrared images.

• The comparison among WISE images in different bands and optical images proves to be a very efficient procedure to identify the nebular emission from WR nebulae, and to disentangle it from that of the ISM material along the line of sight.
• In particular, WR nebulae are clearly detected in the WISE W4 band at 22 $\mu$m.
• Analysis of available mid-IR Spitzer spectra shows that the emission in this band is dominated by thermal emission from dust spatially coincident with the thin nebular shell or most likely with the leading edge of the nebula.