Key to Detail Images

This labeled image identifies some of the significant features in the Carina Nebula region. The rectangles outline the details in the accompanying photographs. Several of the brightest stars are identified by their catalog numbers (CPD=Cape Observatory Photographic Durchmusterung, HD, HDE=Henry Draper Catalog), among the hottest, heaviest stars known. The brighter stars outside of the compact cluster Trumpler 14 belong to another larger cluster, Trumpler 16, which also includes the peculiar star Eta Carinae. Several of these are multiple systems: HD 93129 includes three stars. HD 93160 and HD 39161 are a binary system and HD 93161 is itelf binary.

About the colours

This image is a composite of many separate exposures made by the ACS instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope along with ground-based observations. In total, three filters were used to sample narrow wavelength emission. The color results from assigning different hues (colors) to each monochromatic image. In this case, the assigned colors are:Luminosity*: F658N (H-alpha+[N II])Blue: CTIO ([O III] 501nm)Green: CTIO (H-alpha+[N II] 658nm)Red: CTIO ([S II] 672+673nm)*The higher resolution, black & white Hubble image and the lower resolution, color CTIO images were combined using a technique that takes luminosity (brightness) information from the black and white ACS image and color information from the composite CTIO image. This preserves all of the higher-resolution detail from the Hubble data while rendering a color image representing the physical processes in this active region of space.

About the data

This color image combines many exposures from Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS)* and NOAO/AURA/NSF Cerro-Tololo Interamerican Observatory's (CTIO) 4m Blanco Telescope and MOSAIC2 camera. The ACS data was from the HST proposal 10241 : N. Smith (University of California, Berkeley), J. Bally (University of Colorado at Boulder), N. Walborn (STScI), and J. Morse (NASA/GSFC). *A small area of the Hubble ACS image that was saturated around the brightest star in the field, Eta Carinae, was replaced with images from previous shorter exposures from Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2.

The CTIO observing team includes: N. Smith (University of California, Berkeley), J. Bally (University of Colorado at Boulder), and J. Walawender (Institute for Astronomy/University of Hawaii). *A small area of the Hubble ACS image that was saturated around the brightest star in the field, Eta Carinae, was replaced with images from previous shorter exposures from Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2.