Photos From The European Organization for Astronomical Research in the southern hemisphere (ESO)
We tend to think that we Americans are the only ones interested in space and astronomy. It is good for us to remember that it was a European who first pointed a telescope at space. Some of the finest astronomical telescopes are European and I have decided to show some of the photos taken by them. THE FOLLOWING IMAGES ARE COPYRIGHTED BY THE European Organization for Astronomical Research in the southern hemisphere (ESO) and ARE UNDER THE: One of the best telescopes of the European Southern Observatory is the Very Large Telescope (VLT) at the Paranal Observatory. This scope was used to take the following photo of the Jewel Box cluster, known as NGC 4755. Because this telescope has such a large mirror, it can take sharp photos in record time. This photo was taken in 2.6 seconds through a blue filter, 1.3 seconds through a yellow/green filter and 1.3 seconds through a red filter. In total the photo only took 5.2 seconds.
NGC 4755 - The Jewel Box The Omega Nebula is classified as Messier 17, or NGC 6618. Messier objects were cataloged by the French astronomer Charles Messier, who died in 1817. The objects can all be seen with a small telescope, making them ideal for viewing by amateurs. These objects do look better in bigger instruments however. The image below, of the Omega Nebula, was taken with the EMMI instrument on the ESO 3.58 meter New Technology Telescope. It is a composite of three color images. The color filters used were blue, green and red.
NGC 6619 And Messier 17 - Omega Nebula The ESO has its Mini All-Sky Observation Tool (MASCOT). at the Paranal Observatory. It is comprised of a CCD camera and a fish-eye lens. A CCD camera is a camera that uses a device that collects photons then forms the photo from them. This camera takes a 90 second exposure every three minutes, allowing it to see some very interesting things, such as meteors which create a trail in that time. It can be used to track satellites and atmospheric phenomena also.
Meteor Detected Near Top Left Using MASCOT The following photo of Saturn was taken from a distance of 1209 million km or 725.4 million miles. Adoptive optics were used. Adoptive optics are a special type of hardware used on a telescope mirror that bends it thousands of times a second to match the changes in the atmosphere, allowing for much better seeing by the telescope. In this instance the wavebands that were used were close to the infrared wavebands and that is why the photo looks different than those taken entirely in visible light.
Saturn Taken In Near-Infrared Eta Carinae is a blue variable star and a favorite of the astronomical community. The photo below was also taken in the near-infrared. Adaptive optics were used again to get this fascinating photo. The instrument that took this photo was the Very Large Telescope and this gives the photo an incredible amount of detail. Jets are visible coming from the central star. The star is surrounded by the Homunculus Nebula.
Left: Eta Carinae In Near-Infrared Space is full of all sorts of strange objects and one type is called a quasar. The photo below is of a Quasar called He0450-2958. A quasar is an object that is a compact object thought to be about 10 to 10,000 times the Schwarzschild radius of the central super massive black hole of a galaxy. It is also a source for large amounts of electromagnetic energy. Let's put this in the simplest terms. It is a compact object that is not fully understood, giving off electromagnetic energy, but it is not as compact as a black hole. The Quasar pictured below has several elements that were combined to make the photo. The mid-infrared part is from the VISIR instrument on ESO's Very large Telescope and the visible image comes from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and the Advanced Camera for Surveys.
Quasar The ESO has some very nice videos in their library. One of them is of the first triple asteroid system. The discovery was made by the ESO's 8.2 meter telescope. It is part of the Very Large Telescope Array at Cerro Paranal in Chile. The film is an artist's rendering of it. It shows the large asteroid 87 Sylvia spinning and surrounded by two smaller orbiting asteroids named Remus and Romulus.
Quicktime Movie of 87 Sylvia This next video is extremely beautiful and shows RCW 38, which is a massive star cluster. It was made using different instruments and the opening sequence was made using only an amateur telescope, but as it progresses larger instruments are used until a star survey was incorporated.
RCW 38 Flash Movie Here is a video that shows the detection of a powerful flare that appears and then disappears in the center of our galaxy. Could it be a black hole that is eating some matter? The really large 8.2 meter telescope took this video in near-infrared light. North is on the left. A circle denotes the location of the black hole. The name of the telescope that was used is called the YEPUN scope.
Light Flash At Our Galaxy's Center - Windows Media File To give you an idea of how isolated these telescope locations can be, here is a photo of the APEX telescope location. APEX stands for Atacama Pathfinder Experiment telescope. This is the highest observatory on earth and is located on the Chajnantor plateau in Chile's Atacama region.
APEX Telescope It is important to note that some telescopes are radio telescopes and not optical telescopes.
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