Construction of the Individual Great Observatories M101 Images

These steps combine data from each of NASA's three Great Observatories into a separate color composite image. At the left are separate images from three different regions of infrared light from the Spitzer Space Telescope (top), three images from different regions of visible light from the Hubble Space Telescope (middle), and three different regions of x-ray light from the Chandra X-ray Observatory (bottom). Each of the three images from each observatory is assigned a color according to its wavelength (energy). Red for the reddest (lowest energy) light, green for intermediate wavelengths, and blue for the bluest light (highest energy). These three separate color images can blend together to see the light from a full range of light in each energy region.

About the data

Spitzer data: The science team for the Spitzer data include K. Gordon (STScI), C. Engelbracht, G. Rieke, K. Misselt, and J.-D. Smith (University of Arizona), and R. Kennicutt (University of Cambridge).

Hubble data: This image was created from HST data from the following proposals: 9490 : K. Kuntz (Johns Hopkins University) 9492 : F. Bresolin (University of Hawaii) 5210 : J. Trauger (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) 5397 : J. Mould (NOAO) 6829 : Y.-C. Chu (University of Illinois, Urbana) The Hubble exposures have been superimposed onto ground-based images, visible at the edge of the image, taken at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope in Hawaii, and at the 0.9-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory, part of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Arizona.

Chandra data: The science team was led by K. Kuntz (Johns Hopkins University).