Astronomers capture most detailed thousand-colour image of a galaxy

 Hey, Space Placers!


This is an image of a spiral galaxy, showing a thousand different colours that show the regions of different stars, gas and dust. There are so many stars and so much light in the image that it makes the galaxy look misty or dusty. The centre of the galaxy has more golden and orange light, while the outer edges fade into a deep blue that further fades into the black of the universe. Speckled across the galaxy are portions of bright pink light, along with patches of brown and black.

Astronomers have created a galactic masterpiece: an ultra-detailed image that reveals previously unseen features in the Sculptor Galaxy. Using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT), they observed this nearby galaxy in thousands of colours simultaneously. By capturing vast amounts of data at every single location, they created a galaxy-wide snapshot of the lives of stars within Sculptor.

CREDIT: ESO

Get the story behind this amazing astrophotograph.

For comparison, here is the view of the Sculptor Galaxy in my Unistellar telescope. You can see some of the same regions in my astropic as the VLT which is pretty amazing considering it is a 12-minute exposure through a 3.5-inch smart telescope!

 Unistellar telescope image of the Sculptor Galaxy NGC 253

Greg Redfern

Sky Guy in VA

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