Colour composite of the Galactic Centre

Eso_eso0417d_1024

eso_eso0417d May 12th, 2004

Credit: ESO

Colour composite image of the Galactic Centre at a distance of about 30,000 light-years. It was made by combining images in filters centred at 8.6μm (Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon molecular feature - coded blue), 12.8μm ([NeII] - coded green) and 19.5μm (coded red). Each pixel subtends 0.127 arcsec and the total field is ~ 33 x 33 arcsec with North at the top and East to the left. Total integration times were 300, 160 and 300 s for the 3 filters, respectively. This region is very rich, full of stars, dust, ionised and molecular gas. One of the scientific goals will be to detect and monitor the signal from the black hole at the centre of our galaxy.

Provider: European Southern Observatory

Image Source: https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso0417d/

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
Milky Way Galactic Centre
Subject - Milky Way
Galaxy > Component > Center/Core
Eso_eso0417d_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 17h 45m 40.2s
DEC = -29° 0’ 26.9”
Orientation
North is 1.2° CW
Field of View
0.5 x 0.5 arcminutes
Constellation
Sagittarius

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Red VLT (VISIR) Infrared (Near-IR) 2.0 µm
Green VLT (VISIR) Infrared (Neii) 1.3 µm
Blue VLT (VISIR) Infrared (Near-IR) 8.6 µm
Spectrum_base
Red
Green
Blue
Eso_eso0417d_1280
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ID
eso0417d
Subject Category
B.5.4.9  
Subject Name
Milky Way Galactic Centre
Credits
ESO
Release Date
2004-05-12T00:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso0417d/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
Distance in light years from the Max-Planck-Institute. (http://www.mpe.mpg.de/SPIFFI/preprints/first_result_an1.pdf)
Facility
Very Large Telescope, Very Large Telescope, Very Large Telescope
Instrument
VISIR, VISIR, VISIR
Color Assignment
Red, Green, Blue
Band
Infrared, Infrared, Infrared
Bandpass
Near-IR, Neii, Near-IR
Central Wavelength
1950, 1280, 8600
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
266.417388442, -29.0074592168
Reference Dimension
772.0, 781.0
Reference Pixel
386.0, 390.0
Scale
-1.15518461929e-05, 1.15518461929e-05
Rotation
-1.1600000000000781
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
eso0417d
Metadata Date
2009-01-07T16:25:08+01:00
Metadata Version
1.1
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Detailed color mapping information coming soon...

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There is no distance meta data in this image.

 

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