In Tarantula territory (a)

A reproduction of a composite colour image of the Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and its surroundings. The LMC is a satellite galaxy to our Milky Way system, located in the southern constellation Dorado (the Swordfish) at a distance of approximately 170,000 light-years. The image is based on 15 exposures in the visual part of the spectrum with the Wide Field Imager (WFI) camera on the 2.2-m MPG/ESO telescope at the La Silla Observatory. A number of small areas near the borders were not covered in all three colours and have been left black. Six smaller fields with particular objects from this photo are reproduced as ESO Press Photos eso0216b-g. ESO Press Photo eso0216a was produced from 15 images that were obtained in September 2000 with the Wide-Field-Imager (WFI) at the 2.2-m MPG/ESO telescope. The images were exposed in the B-band (5 x 200 sec; wavelength 456 nm; Full-Width-Half-Maximum (FWHM) 99 nm; here rendered as blue), V-band (5 x 200 sec; 540 nm; 89 nm; green) and R-band (5 x 200 sec; 652 nm; 162 nm; red). The original pixel size is 0.238 arcsec. The photo shows the full field recorded in all three colours. It measures approximately 34 x 34 arcmin 2 ; North is up and East is left. The seeing was about 1.6 arcsec.

Credit:

ESO

About the Image

Id:eso0216a
Type:Observation
Release date:7 June 2002
Related releases:eso0216
Size:4531 x 4505 px

About the Object

Name:Large Magellanic Cloud, LMC, Tarantula Nebula
Type:Local Universe : Galaxy : Type : Irregular
Local Universe : Nebula : Appearance : Emission : H II Region
Distance:170000 light years
Constellation:Dorado
Category:Galaxies
Nebulae

Image Formats

Large JPEG
12.0 MB
Screensize JPEG
877.0 KB

Zoomable


Wallpapers

1024x768
739.4 KB
1280x1024
1.2 MB
1600x1200
1.7 MB
1920x1200
1.8 MB
2048x1536
2.5 MB

Coordinates

Position (RA):5 38 37.98
Position (Dec):-69° 5' 42.18"
Field of view:35.76 x 35.37 arcminutes
Orientation:North is 0.1° right of vertical

Colours & filters

BandWavelengthTelescope
Optical
B
456 nmMPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope
WFI
Optical
V
540 nmMPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope
WFI
Optical
R
652 nmMPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope
WFI