NGC1097 - HST - Potw2211a
Credit:
ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Sand, K. Sheth
This finely detailed image shows the heart of NGC 1097, a barred spiral galaxy that lies about 48 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Fornax. This picture reveals the intricacy of the web of stars and dust at NGC 1097’s centre, with the long tendrils of dust picked out in a dark red hue. The extent to which the galaxy’s structure is revealed is thanks to two instruments on the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope: the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) and the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS).
The idea that a single image can be taken using two different cameras is not very intuitive. However, it makes far more sense after delving into how beautiful astronomical images like this one are composed. A helpful starting point is to consider what colour is, exactly. Our eyes can detect light waves at optical wavelengths between roughly 380 and 750 nanometres, using three types of receptors, each of which is sensitive to just a slice of that range. Our brain interprets these specific wavelengths as colours. By contrast, a telescope camera like the WFC3 or ACS is sensitive to a single, broad range of wavelengths to maximise the amount of light collected. Raw images from telescopes are always in greyscale, only showing the amount of the light captured across all those wavelengths.
Colour images from telescopes are indirectly possible, however, with the help of filters. By sliding a filter over the aperture of an instrument like the WFC3 or ACS, only light from a very specific wavelength range is let through — one such filter used in this image is for green light around 555 nanometres. This yields a greyscale image showing only the amount of light with that wavelength. This multicolour image of NGC 1097 is composed of images using seven different filters in total.
Credit:
ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Sand, K. Sheth
Coordinates Position (RA): 2 46 19.69 Position (Dec): -30° 16' 53.40" Field of view: 4.90 x 2.61 arcminutes Orientation: North is 48.7° right of vertical
Colours & filters Band Wavelength Telescope Ultraviolet UV 275 nm Hubble Space Telescope WFC3 Optical u 336 nm Hubble Space Telescope WFC3 Optical B 438 nm Hubble Space Telescope WFC3 Optical Strömgren y 547 nm Hubble Space Telescope WFC3 Optical V 555 nm Hubble Space Telescope WFC3 Optical I 814 nm Hubble Space Telescope ACS Optical I 814 nm Hubble Space Telescope WFC3 Optical H-alpha + N II 657 nm Hubble Space Telescope WFC3.
![]() ![]() |
ESA/Hubble images, videos and web texts are released by the ESA under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license and may on a non-exclusive basis be reproduced without fee provided they are clearly and visibly credited. Detailed conditions are below; see the ESA copyright statement for full information. For images created by NASA or on the hubblesite.org website, or for ESA/Hubble images on the esahubble.org site before 2009, use the {{PD-Hubble}} tag.
Conditions:
Notes:
|
- Dieses Werk darf von dir
- verbreitet werden – vervielfältigt, verbreitet und öffentlich zugänglich gemacht werden
- neu zusammengestellt werden – abgewandelt und bearbeitet werden
- Zu den folgenden Bedingungen:
- Namensnennung – Du musst angemessene Urheber- und Rechteangaben machen, einen Link zur Lizenz beifügen und angeben, ob Änderungen vorgenommen wurden. Diese Angaben dürfen in jeder angemessenen Art und Weise gemacht werden, allerdings nicht so, dass der Eindruck entsteht, der Lizenzgeber unterstütze gerade dich oder deine Nutzung besonders.
Relevante Bilder
Relevante Artikel
NGC 1097NGC 1097 = Arp 77 ist eine Balken-Spiralgalaxie mit aktivem Galaxienkern vom Hubble-Typ SBb im Sternbild Fornax am Südsternhimmel. Im Zentrum befindet sich ein auffälliger, rund 5500 Lichtjahre großer Ring mit starker Sternbildung. Dieser Bereich ist aktuell Ziel mehrerer Forschungsprojekte unter anderem bei der ESO. Es gibt deutliche Hinweise auf ein Schwarzes Loch mit etwa 100 Millionen Sonnenmassen im Kern der Galaxie. .. weiterlesen