Alnitak, Alnilam, Mintaka
影像提供: Digitized Sky Survey, ESA/ESO/NASA FITS Liberator
彩色合成: Davide De Martin (Skyfactory)
Explanation:
Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka, are the bright bluish stars from east to west (left to right) along the diagonal in this gorgeous cosmic vista. Otherwise known as the Belt of Orion, these three blue supergiant stars are hotter and much more massive than the Sun. They lie about 1,500 light-years away, born of Orion's well-studied interstellar clouds. In fact, clouds of gas and dust adrift in this region have intriguing and some surprisingly familiar shapes, including the dark Horsehead Nebula and Flame Nebula near Alnitak at the lower left. The famous Orion Nebula itself lies off the bottom of this star field that covers an impressive 4.4x3.5 degrees on the sky. The color picture was composited from digitized black and white photographic plates recorded through red and blue astronomical filters, with a computer synthesized green channel. The plates were taken using the Samuel Oschin Telescope, a wide-field survey instrument at Palomar Observatory, between 1987 and 1991.
說明:
在這幅壯麗的宇宙視野裡，對角線由左至右(天空中由東到西)的藍色亮星分別是參宿一 (Alnitak)、 參宿二 (Alnilam)及參宿三 (Mintaka)。又稱為獵人腰帶的這三顆藍超巨星，溫度和質量都遠比太陽高，距離我們約有1500光年遠，都是從獵戶座內被研究的很透徹的星際星雲裡誕生出來的。漂流在這個區域內的星雲，具有很有趣甚至是我們周遭很熟悉的形狀，例如影像左下角的黝黑馬頭星雲和參宿一附近的火焰星雲。著名的獵戶座大星雲則在這幅 4.4度乘3.5度天空視野之下方 。這幅彩色影像是由透過紅色及藍色天文濾光鏡的數位黑白照片組合出來的，綠光通道的資訊則來自程式推算。影像是用Samuel Oschin望遠鏡取得的，這是一部帕洛瑪天文台的廣角巡天儀器，取像的期間是1987年到1991年。
資料來源: Scientific American
Department of Physics, NCKU
