R Coronae Australis Complex

This is a colour photo of the R Coronae Australis region in the southern Milky Way, obtained with the Wide Field Imager (WFI) (camera) at the 2.2-m MPG/ESO Telescope on La Silla (Chile). It is based on a series of CCD exposures through optical B-, V- and R-filters, here rendered as blue, green and red, respectively. The sky field shown measures approx. 33.7 x 31.9 arcmin (about the diameter of the full moon).

Tecnical information : The observations were obtained on the night of 30 August 2000. The image is a combination of twelve large (8000 x 8000 pix) CCD frames taken through B, V, and R filters. Four exposures of 5 min each were obtained in each filter, with the telescope pointing at slightly different positions so that the gaps among the eight individual CCD-chips of the detector can be adequately filled. All frames were carefully aligned, and the intensity levels were cut in order to achieve the proper colour balance. A logarithmic intensity scale was used to improve the dynamical range. This image displays the full field and was rebinned to a smaller scale in order to allow transportation over the web. The images were prepared by Fernando Comeron (ESO).