Press Releases 1997

BOW SHOCK AT VELA X-1

This narrow-band image of the field around the bright OB star HD77581 was obtained with the 1.54-m Danish telescope at the ESO La Silla observatory. A bow shock is present north of HD77581, the heavy companion of the X-ray pulsar Vela~X-1 that cannot be seen in this image that was made through an H-alpha filter.

The OB-runaway star HD77581 is so bright that it saturated the CCD detector, leaving an artificial structure (the `cross') in the image. North is up and East to the left.

This is the caption to ESO PR Photo 02/97 [JPG, 184k] that accompanies ESO Press Release 01/97. It may be reproduced, if credit is given to the European Southern Observatory.

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