The Lobster Nebula seen with ESO’s VISTA telescope

eso_eso1309a February 20th, 2013

Credit: ESO/VVV Survey/D. Minniti. Acknowledgement: Ignacio Toledo

This image from ESO’s VISTA telescope captures a celestial landscape of vast, glowing clouds of gas and tendrils of dust surrounding hot young stars. This infrared view reveals the stellar nursery known as NGC 6357 in a new light. It was taken as part of the VISTA Variables in the Vía Láctea (VVV) survey, which is currently scanning the Milky Way in a bid to map our galaxy’s structure and explain how it formed.

Provider: European Southern Observatory

Image Source: https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1309a/

Curator: European Southern Observatory, Garching bei München, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

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Image Details

Image Type: Observation
Object Name: NGC 6357
Subject - Milky Way: Nebula > Type > Star Formation

Position Details

Position (ICRS): RA = 17h 25m 4.4s; DEC = -34° 18’ 40.0”
Orientation: North is 56.0° CCW
Field of View: 1.5 x 1.5 degrees
Constellation: Scorpius

Color Mapping

Telescope	Spectral Band	Wavelength
Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VIRCAM)	Infrared (Ks)	-
Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VIRCAM)	Infrared (H)	-
Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VIRCAM)	Infrared (J)	-

ID: eso1309a
Subject Category: B.4.1.2
Subject Name: NGC 6357
Credits: ESO/VVV Survey/D. Minniti. Acknowledgement: Ignacio Toledo

Release Date: 2013-02-20T12:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url: https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1309a/

Type: Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes

Facility: Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy, Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy, Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy
Instrument: VIRCAM, VIRCAM, VIRCAM
Color Assignment: Red, Green, Blue

Band: Infrared, Infrared, Infrared
Bandpass: Ks, H, J
Central Wavelength

Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
Notes

Coordinate Frame: ICRS
Equinox: J2000
Reference Value: 261.268475427, -34.3111111481
Reference Dimension: 16000.0, 16000.0

Reference Pixel: 8000.0, 8000.0
Scale: -9.47096377919e-05, 9.47096377919e-05
Rotation: 55.958999202686606
Coordinate System Projection:: TAN

Quality: Full
FITS Header
Notes

Creator (Curator): European Southern Observatory
URL: http://www.eso.org/
Name
Email

Telephone
Address: Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2
City: Garching bei München
State/Province

Postal Code: D-85748
Country: Germany
Rights: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Publisher: European Southern Observatory
Publisher ID: eso
Resource ID: eso1309a

Resource URL: https://www.eso.org/public/archives/images/original/eso1309a.tif
Related Resources

Metadata Date: 2013-01-18T12:38:39+01:00
Metadata Version: 1.1

Detailed color mapping information coming soon...

There is no distance meta data in this image.