Eta Carinae

This new image of the luminous blue variable Eta Carinae was taken with the NACO near-infrared adaptive optics instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope, yielding an incredible amount of detail. The images clearly shows a bipolar structure as well as the jets coming out from the central star. The image was obtained by the Paranal Science team and processed by Yuri Beletsky (ESO) and Hännes Heyer (ESO). It is based on data obtained through broad (J, H, and K; 90 second exposure time per filters) and narrow-bands (1.64, 2.12, and 2.17 microns; probing iron, molecular and atomic hydrogen, respectively; 4 min per filter).

Credit:

ESO

About the Image

Id:eso0817a
Type:Observation
Release date:27 May 2008
Related releases:eso1637, eso0817
Size:1000 x 1009 px

About the Object

Name:Eta Carinae
Type:Milky Way : Star : Type : Wolf-Rayet
Distance:7500 light years
Category:Stars

Image Formats

Large JPEG
159.0 KB
Screensize JPEG
118.2 KB

Wallpapers

1024x768
139.5 KB
1280x1024
210.0 KB
1600x1200
292.8 KB
1920x1200
346.0 KB
2048x1536
431.3 KB

Colours & filters

BandTelescope
Infrared
J
Very Large Telescope
NACO
Infrared
H
Very Large Telescope
NACO
Infrared
K
Very Large Telescope
NACO