Dwarf Galaxy M60-UCD1

This is a Hubble Space Telescope image of the ultracompact dwarf galaxy M60-UCD1. The galaxy crams 140 million stars within a diameter of about 300 light-years. Astronomers believe that a monster black hole resides at the center of the galaxy.

About the colours

The images are composites of separate exposures made by the ACS/WFC and WFPC2 instruments on the Hubble Space Telescope. Four filters were used to sample broad and narrow wavelength ranges for the UVIS image. The colors result from assigning different hues (colors) to each monochromatic image. In this case, the assigned colors are: Blue: ACS/WFC F475W (B) + WFPC2 F555W (V) Green: F475W (B) + F555W (V) + F850LP (z) + F814W (I) Red: ACS/WFC F850LP (z) + WFPC2 F814W (I)

About the data

Data for this science result comes from the HST proposal: 12369 G. Fabbiano (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), T. Fragos and V. Kalogera (Northwestern University), D.-W. Kim and A. Zezas (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), J. Gallagher III (University of Wisconsin, Madison) , A. King (University of Leicester), J. Strader (Harvard University), and J. Brodie (University of California, Santa Cruz).

The release image of M60 also includes data from proposals 9043 , PI: J. Tonry (University of Hawaii) and 9410 , PI: P. Cote (Dominion Astrophysical Observatory).

The science team comprises: A. Seth (University of Utah), R. van den Bosch (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg), S. Mieske (ESO Chile), H. Baumgardt (University of Queensland), M. den Brok (University of Utah), J. Strader (Michigan State University), N. Neumayer (ESO Garching), I. Chilingarian (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics/Moscow State University), M. Hilker (ESO Garching), R. McDermid and L. Spitler (Australian Astronomical Observatory/Macquarie University, Sydney), J. Brodie (University of California, Santa Cruz), M. Frank (Center of Astronomy/Heidelberg University), and J. Walsh (University of Texas, Austin).