Multimedia Gallery
Dark Energy camera portrait of Centaurus A
The main lighting in this image, captured using the Dark Energy Camera mounted on the Victor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope, is from the galaxy Centaurus A and the luminous glow is from stars. The image provides a spectacular view of the dark tendrils of dust that shade the bright center of the galaxy and Centaurus A’s dust lane, which hosts large amounts of gas and dust and widespread star formation, visible from the red-tinted clouds of hydrogen that intersperse the darker, more opaque dust and by the large numbers of faint blue stars visible at each end of the dust lane.
[The Dark Energy Camera is mounted on the Victor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, a program of the U.S. National Science Foundation's NOIRLab.] (Date image taken: unknown; date originally posted to NSF Multimedia Gallery: July 13, 2021)
Credit: CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA
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