MUSE image of the Orion Nebula

This colour composite of the Orion Nebula was created from data from the new MUSE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope. For each part of this spectacular star formation region this new instrument splits the light up into its component colours — revealing in detail the chemical and physical properties of each point. This picture is based on a mosaic of many MUSE datasets that were obtained soon after the instrument achieved first light in early 2014.

To make this picture selected regions of the spectrum were extracted to form a single colour image. Although this is impressive it is only a tiny fraction of the information in the full MUSE three-dimensional dataset.

Credit:

ESO/MUSE consortium/R. Bacon

About the Image

Id:eso1407d
Type:Observation
Release date:5 March 2014, 12:00
Related releases:eso1407
Size:1748 x 1460 px

About the Object

Name:M 42, Messier 42, Orion Nebula
Type:Milky Way : Nebula : Appearance : Emission
Constellation:Orion
Category:Nebulae

Image Formats

Large JPEG
370.6 KB
Screensize JPEG
130.7 KB

Zoomable


Wallpapers

1024x768
156.4 KB
1280x1024
225.9 KB
1600x1200
301.3 KB
1920x1200
327.0 KB
2048x1536
426.7 KB

Coordinates

Position (RA):5 35 16.89
Position (Dec):-5° 23' 43.02"
Field of view:5.82 x 4.86 arcminutes
Orientation:North is 0.0° left of vertical

Colours & filters

BandTelescope
OpticalVery Large Telescope
MUSE