Comet Halley at 28 AU heliocentric distance

Faint, star-like image of Comet Halley (centre), observed with the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) at the Paranal Observatory on March 6-8, 2003. 81 individual exposures from three of the four 8.2-m VLT telescopes with a total exposure time of about 9 hours were combined to show the magnitude 28.2 object. At this time, Comet Halley was about 4200 million km from the Sun (28.06 AU) and 4080 million km (27.26 AU) from the Earth. All images of stars and galaxies in the field were removed during the extensive image processing needed to produce this unique image. Due to the remaining, unavoidable "background noise", it is best to view the comet image from some distance. The field measures 60 x 40 arcsec 2 ; North is up and East is left.

Bildnachweis:

ESO

Über das Bild

ID:eso0328a
Typ:Beobachtung
Veröffentlichungsdatum:1. September 2003
Dazugehörige Veröffentlichungen:eso0328
Größe:1280 x 768 px

Über das Objekt

Name:Comet Halley
Typ:Solar System : Interplanetary Body : Comet
Kategorie:Solar System

Bildformate

Großes JPEG
351,6 KB

Bildschirm-Hintergrundbilder

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Farben & Filter

SpektralbereichTeleskop
OptischVery Large Telescope
FORS1
OptischVery Large Telescope
VIMOS
OptischVery Large Telescope
FORS2