NOIRLab: Most Detailed Image Yet of Famous Stellar Nursery

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bystander
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NOIRLab: Most Detailed Image Yet of Famous Stellar Nursery

Post by bystander » Tue Oct 06, 2020 4:51 pm

Looking Sharp: Most Detailed Image Yet of Famous Stellar Nursery
NSF NOIRLab | Gemini Observatory | 2020 Oct 05

The Carina Nebula observed in unprecedented detail with adaptive optics.

Click to view full size image 1 or image 2
Carina Nebula Western Wall, with and without Adaptive Optics
Credit: Gemini South - International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA
Processing: Patrick Hartigan, Travis Rector, Mahdi Zamani & Davide de Martin

Astronomers using the international Gemini Observatory, a program of NSF’s NOIRLab, have captured the western wall of the Carina Nebula in unprecedented detail in a compelling image released today. The image reveals a number of unusual structures in the nebula. The exquisite detail revealed in the image is in part due to a technology known as adaptive optics, which resulted in a ten-fold improvement in the sharpness of the research team’s observations.

There is no better location to investigate the birth of stars than nebulae — regions of gas and dust where stars coalesce, heat up and start to glow. The brilliant Carina Nebula, located in the southern hemisphere sky, is 500 times larger in actual area than the better-known Orion Nebula, making it an ideal candidate for investigating star formation.

The team used adaptive optics on the 8.1-meter Gemini South telescope in Chile to significantly improve upon previous observations of the Carina Nebula’s western wall, the well-defined edge of the nebula. Adaptive optics compensates for the effects of turbulence in the Earth’s atmosphere to produce pin-sharp images, comparable to those from a space telescope. Indeed, this image is reminiscent of the famous Hubble Pillars of Creation in the Eagle Nebula. ...

Gemini South’s High-Def Version of ‘A Star is Born’
Rice University | 2020 Oct 05

A JWST Preview: Adaptive-optics Images of H2, Br-γ, and K-continuum
in Carina's Western Wall
~ Patrick Hartigan, Turlough Downes, Andrea Isella
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alive to the gentle breeze of communication, and please stop being such a jerk.
— Garrison Keillor

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Ann
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Re: NOIRLab: Most Detailed Image Yet of Famous Stellar Nursery

Post by Ann » Thu Oct 08, 2020 4:23 am

What I miss in this image of a stellar nursery is some information as to exactly where in in this stellar nursery that stars are being born.

Ann
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