Forbidden coronal iron line images of Puppis A - Cloud evaporation or shocked cloud?

Calibrated CCD images of the eastern X-ray knot in Puppis A, made in the forbidden red and green coronal Fe lines, are discussed. They show the high-temperature gas to have a rich morphology, with the scale of some features approaching the 2.6 arcsec resolution of the data. The pictures have been compared with an Einstein HRI soft X-ray image; there is close correspondence in the position and size of structures seen in the optical forbidden lines and in the X-rays. Located near the shock front a cloud of about 0.4 pc x 0.9 pc dimension shines brilliantly in the 5303 A line. To test the hypothesis that the cloud might be evaporating into the remnant interior, the 5303 A and 6374 A intensity distributions expected for a steady state, one-fluid evaporatig model have been computed.