This pair of images of a region in the globular star cluster M14, (located 70,000 light-years away) clearly demonstrate the high spatial resolution of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, as compared to the view from a ground-based telescope. The image on the left, taken with the 4-meter telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, has a resolution of 1.5 arc seconds. The image on the right, taken with European Space Agency's Faint Object Camera (FOC) aboard HST, yields stellar diameters of 0.08 arc second. The FOC picture reveals literally hundreds of separate stars in a tiny region of the cluster where only dozens are distinguishable on the ground-based image. Numerous faint stars, apparently single objects in the ground-based CCD (Charge Coupled Device) image, are clearly resolved into multiple objects in the FOC image. The field of view is 22 x 22 arcseconds. (The diagonal strips at the upper left and lower right comers are occulting "fingers" designed to block the light from bright sources). This FOC picture was taken in an attempt to identify the location of a rare stellar outburst; or nova, which occured in the year 1938. The FOC resolves five separate stars in the nova's suspected location, which previously appeared as only one object in ground-based images. Presumably only one of these five stars is the old nova; though it is also possible that the nova is too faint to be seen. These images will be used to support follow-on observations which are planned by the HST's Faint Object Spectrograph (FOS).
Credits
Credit: NASA, ESA, and STScI Ground Image: Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, Chile| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | M14, NGC 6402 |
| R.A. Position | 17h 37m 36.14s |
| Dec. Position | -3° 14' 45.3" |
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | A name or catalog number that astronomers use to identify an astronomical object. |
| Object Description | The type of astronomical object. |
| R.A. Position | Right ascension – analogous to longitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Dec. Position | Declination – analogous to latitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Constellation | One of 88 recognized regions of the celestial sphere in which the object appears. |
| Distance | The physical distance from Earth to the astronomical object. Distances within our solar system are usually measured in Astronomical Units (AU). Distances between stars are usually measured in light-years. Interstellar distances can also be measured in parsecs. |
| Dimensions | The physical size of the object or the apparent angle it subtends on the sky. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description |
|
| Instrument | The science instrument used to produce the data. |
| Exposure Dates | The date(s) that the telescope made its observations and the total exposure time. |
| Filters | The camera filters that were used in the science observations. |
| About The Image | |
| Image Credit | The primary individuals and institutions responsible for the content. |
| Publication Date | The date and time the release content became public. |
| Color Info | A brief description of the methods used to convert telescope data into the color image being presented. |
| Orientation | The rotation of the image on the sky with respect to the north pole of the celestial sphere. |
