Credit: ESO

This is an animated GIF of a colour composite of near-infrared images of the central regions of the Orion Nebula and its corresponding finding chart, obtained on March 14, 2000, with the SOFI instrument at the ESO 3.5-m New Technology Telescope (NTT) at La Silla. Three exposures were made through J- (wavelength 1.25 µm here colour-coded as "blue"), H- (1.65 µm; "green") and Ks-filters (2.16 µm; "red"), respectively. The central group of bright stars is the famous "Trapezium" . The total effective exposure time was 86.4 seconds per band. The sky field measures about 4.9 x 4.9 arcmin 2 (1024 x 1024 pix 2). North is up and East is left.

Provider: European Southern Observatory

Image Source: https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso0124c/

Curator: European Southern Observatory, Garching bei München, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License