Carina Nebula (NGC3372)

Carina Nebula (NGC3372)

Downloadable versions (see NOAO Conditions of Use):
200 x 332 13 kb color JPEG(on this page)
400 x 663 49 kb color JPEG
1024 x 1696 312 kb color JPEG
2069 x 3426 1.0 Mb color JPEG
2069 x 3426 6.9 Mb 8-bit color TIFF
2069 x 3426 20.8 Mb 24-bit color TIFF

This image shows a giant star-forming region in the southern sky known as the Carina Nebula (NGC3372), combining the light from 3 different filters tracing emission from oxygen (blue), hydrogen (green), and sulfur (red). The color is also representative of the temperature in the ionized gas: blue is relatively hot and red is cooler. The Carina Nebula is a good example of how very massive stars rip apart the molecular clouds that give birth to them. The bright star near the center of the image is Eta Carinae, which is one of the most massive and luminous stars known. This picture is a composite of several exposures made with the Curtis Schmidt telescope at the Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory. We also have a broad-band optical image, approximately true color, made photographically with the Curtis Schmidt.

Minimum credit line: Nathan Smith, University of Minnesota/NOAO/AURA/NSF (for details see Conditions of Use)

Return to: nebulae page, emission nebulae page, stars page.

NOAO is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), Inc. under cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation

Comments by e-mail to images@noao.edu