The Trifid Nebula in the Near-Infrared
Since discovering APLpy to make nicer RGB images from astronomical data, I decided to revisit some images we took with the CTIO 4meter telescope in Chile back in 2011. The data was in the near-infrared, in J (1.0micron), H (1.4 micron), and Ks (2.0 micron) bands. This is the Trifid Nebula in the constellation Sagittarius. It looks quite different in the NIR than it does in optical the blue color is because it is brighter at 1 micron than it is in 2 microns, though you can still see just how reddened the stars behind the dust lanes are. One really striking thing is just how much more light penetrates the dust at 2 microns than it does in the optical, you can see many many more stars through the dust. You really need to zoom in to appreciate some of the detail. Also, compare to a single band grayscale image that I made when I originally took the data (cropped to just show the main star-forming region in the middle):
The Trifid Nebula in the Near-Infrared
Since discovering APLpy to make nicer RGB images from astronomical data, I decided to revisit some images we took with the CTIO 4meter telescope in Chile back in 2011. The data was in the near-infrared, in J (1.0micron), H (1.4 micron), and Ks (2.0 micron) bands. This is the Trifid Nebula in the constellation Sagittarius. It looks quite different in the NIR than it does in optical the blue color is because it is brighter at 1 micron than it is in 2 microns, though you can still see just how reddened the stars behind the dust lanes are. One really striking thing is just how much more light penetrates the dust at 2 microns than it does in the optical, you can see many many more stars through the dust. You really need to zoom in to appreciate some of the detail. Also, compare to a single band grayscale image that I made when I originally took the data (cropped to just show the main star-forming region in the middle):