The accompanying illustration consists of four images of the remarkable cluster of tightly-packed young stars in the 30 Doradus Nebula, 160,000 light-years from Earth in the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy.
Panel A (upper left) is a portion of a photograph made with the Wide Field/Planetary Camera on HST on August 3, 1990. The camera photographed four adjoining sky regions simultaneously, which are here assembled in a mosaic.
Panel B (upper right) is an enlargement of the central portion of the HST photograph, which was made in violet light. It shows the compact star cluster R136, which consists of very hot and massive young stars. The star images have bright cores that are only 0.1 arcseconds wide, allowing many more stars to be distinguished than in previous ground-based telescopic photos.
Panel C (lower left) is a photograph of the same region as Panel B, both obtained with the Max Planck 2.2-meter telescope at the European Southern Observatory in Chile by Dr. Georges Meylan. The star images are 0.6 arcseconds wide.
Panel D (lower right) shows how computer processing of the HST image in Panel B has sharpened its appearance. The undesirable fuzzy halos around the stars as seen in Panel B are substantially reduced.
Credits
NASA, ESA, and STScIGround Image: G. Meylan/Max Planck 2.2-meter telescope/European Southern Observatory,Chile
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | 30 Doradus, R136 |
| R.A. Position | 05h 38m 42.39s |
| Dec. Position | -69° 6' 2.81" |
| 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. |
