The Stella Nursery
February 3rd 2011 04:28
Category: Cosmic Objects
Image of The Orion Nebula : Credit: ESO and Igor Chekalin
Perhaps one of the most studied nebula in the night sky and certainly one of the most recognizable is the Orion Nebula. The Orion Nebula, also referred to as Messier 42.
The Orion nebula is one of the most photographed and the images are very compelling. Apart form the nebula’s natural beauty it offs us an insight at what goes on in the making of stars.
The nebula is a massive star-forming region and it providing us with a greater understanding of stellar birth and evolution.
The Orion nebula is truly a Stella nursery which is relatively near to us at just 1350 light-years. The nebula is a vast expanse of gas and dust the ingredients that form stars.
The Orion nebula is so bright that it can be seen with the unaided eye and is a breathtaking sight through a telescope.
The Orion nebula is still providing us with more of its secrets. New generation telescopes like the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope at the La Silla Observatory, Chile.
The image you see was captured by the Wide Field Imager camera mounted to the telescope.
The image itself is constructed form multiple images taken by the telescopes’ The Wide Field Imager camera. The images were taken via a series of filters much like regular astrophotography but to a much bigger scale.
The images are composites using a combination of red, blue, and green and ultraviolet filters.
Light passing through the red filter shows the glowing hydrogen gas. The amount of time taken to expose each image separately was around 52 minutes.
Light that passed through a red filter, shows the glowing hydrogen gas, is colored red.
Light in the yellow-green part of the spectrum is coloured green, blue light is coloured blue and light that passed through an ultraviolet filter is shown as a purple colour.
The exposure times were about 52 minutes through each filter when these composite images were combined we see a masterpiece of light colour and beauty.
They found that the faint red dwarfs in the star cluster associated with the glowing gas radiate much more light than had previously been anticipated. It is images like these that provide us with a better understanding in how these new stars are born and evolve.
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Comment by S.L.
The Political Brief
Comment by CarlCan
Astroearth
Camera Sense
Hi S.L.
The night sky is a wonderful canvas
one life time is not enough to capture it.