Colour composite of the Galactic Centre

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.