Detail of the honeycomb structure around SN 1987A

Detail of the frame obtained by NTT and EMMI in 1992, with 10 minutes exposure in H-alpha. It is a close-up view of the interesting honeycomb structure discovered in the interstellar matter around SN 1987A. This supernova, detected in 1987 in the nearby Large Magellanic Cloud, was the closest explosion of this kind for several centuries, the first visible by naked-eye for 383 years and definitely an event of the greatest relevance in modern astronomy. ESO telescopes have now been observing this object for more than twenty years.

More information in ESO Messenger 69: http://www.eso.org/sci/publications/messenger/archive/no.69-sep92/messenger-no69.pdf