eso_eso0119b May 18th, 2001
Credit: ESO
This photograph shows the three nuclei of Comet LINEAR (C/2001 A2), but in a false-colour rendering for more clarity. The cometary fragment "B" (right) has split into "B1" and "B2" (separation about 1 arcsec, or 500 km) while fragment "A" (upper left) is considerably fainter. Technical information: this image is based on a 1-min exposure on May 16, 2001 at 23:10 hrs UT through an R-filtre with the VLT Test Camera at the Cassegrain focus (under the main mirror) of the 8.2-m VLT YEPUN (UT4) telescope on Paranal. Although the comet was low in the western sky, the atmospheric conditions were good and the seeing was excellent, 0.6 arcsec. The telescope was set to follow the motion of the comet in the sky. The fields shown measure 17 x 18 arcsec 2 and 27 x 21 arcsec 2, respectively; 1 pixel = 0.0455 arcsec. North is up and East is left.
Provider: European Southern Observatory
Image Source: https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso0119b/
Curator: European Southern Observatory, Garching bei München, Germany
Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Detailed color mapping information coming soon...
Providers | Sign In