Discovering the secrets of Orion nebula

Washington, Jan 20 (ANI): Images seen through the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile have revealed the stars within Messier 42, commonly known as Orion Nebula.

They found that the faint red dwarfs in the star cluster associated with the glowing gas radiate much more light than had previously been thought, providing more data with which the team created a more detailed picture of the nebula.

The image is a composite of several exposures taken through a total of five different filters. Light that passed through a red filter as well as light from a filter that shows the glowing hydrogen gas, were coloured red. Light in the yellow-green part of the spectrum is coloured green, blue light is coloured blue and light that passed through an ultraviolet filter has been coloured purple. The exposure times were about 52 minutes through each filter.

The image was processed by ESO using the observational data found by Igor Chekalin (Russia), who participated in ESO's Hidden Treasures 2010 astrophotography competition. (ANI)