VLT quick views of spacecraft targets

The first picture (ESO Press Photo eso9835a) is a composite of seven 2-minute exposures of Comet Wild 2, obtained through a red filter with the VLT Test Camera in the early morning of July 25, 1998. The observations were made during rather windy conditions, about 15 m/sec, whereby substantial, variable pressure was exerted on the upper part of the telescope structure. Still, the guiding worked very well and the resulting image shows the fine structure of the comet's "coma" of dust that has been released from the two-kilometre "dirty snowball" nucleus. In this combined image, the stars in the field are seen seven times each, reflecting the motion of the comet in the sky.

This is a combination of seven 2-min R (red) exposures with the VLT Test Camera on July 25, 1998. The individual frames were flat-fielded, shifted in order to centre the comet and then combined. The field shown measures 1.3 x 1.3 arcmin. North is up; East is to the left.